


You Only Live Twice

by SekritOMG



Series: The Rectum is a Tomb [1]
Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - British, Alternate Universe - College/University, Evelyn Waugh, F/M, M/M, Pre-Raphaelite art, dolostone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 66,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SekritOMG/pseuds/SekritOMG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In his third year at Oxford, 1966-1967, Stanley's life is at a crossroads. The boy he likes is seeing someone else, his tutor hates his work, and homosexuality is illegal in Britain. Yet a posh, handsome classmate has taken an interest in him; could this be the year Stanley figures out the direction he's meant to head in? [AU; prequel to "The Rectum is a Tomb"]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Michaelmas: October-December 1966

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julads](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julads/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Rectum is a Tomb](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/64452) by SekritOMG. 



> This is a (very) belated birthday girl for Julads, who is one of the best writers of AU fanfic I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If you haven't taken the time to check out "Swarm and Handle" or "Alla Breve," please read those before beginning on this fic. Her writing is not only mature and complex; she offers some of the most substantial and best-researched, most immersive AU writing you will ever be privileged to experience. I hope in this story, a prequel to another fic of mine, I have been able to satisfy her interest in AU fanfic while offering something that is testament to her quality as a writer and contributions to the South Park fandom.
> 
> Thanks is due to Nhaingen, for reviewing a draft of this, and to Ceia, for her truly comprehensive comments, especially about British speech and culture.

_Outrages on decency._

_11\. Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, . . ._

> Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 ("Labouchere Amendment")

* * *

 

“Hello,” a voice sang, “I’ve just let myself in. Stanley? Hello?” It was chipper and musical. _Kyle_. He was probably high, Stanley figured.

“I’m in here, darling. Bathroom,” Stanley clarified. “Mirror. _Distressed_.” So they were both a bit high. Stanley felt himself coming down anyway. The only thing more stressful than formal dinner with the maudlin Magdalens was forced sobriety. Stanley wasn’t altogether certain how he’d borne it. He and Kyle had laughed all the way through the iceberg and canned beet salad, but things had calmed by dessert to the point that they saw nothing amusing at all in currant-studded gelatin. Kyle had flung one (a currant, that is) across the table at Bridon, a year below them.

“Oops,” he’d said, dropping a register into his breathy queer lisp. “What a calamity.”

Bridon remained unconvinced, and scowled at them over his coffee.

Now Stanley was obsessively tugging at his hair in the bathroom mirror, wondering how he was meant to show his face to the world. Butters Stotch was performing her usual routine at The Queen’s Men and although the show began in 10 minutes, Stanley knew he’d be seeing it again – she sang the same tunes each week, and winked at the same gentlemen in the back who tipped well. It wouldn’t do to go out in public with pitch roots climbing away from his part, the notable sign of slacking off where one’s appearance was concerned.

This was when Kyle slipped into the loo behind Stanley, a bottle of uncorked spumante in hand. “I picked this up from Eric; lord knows why he had it. I’ve been drinking it on the way over. Want some?”

Stanley took the bottle, fitted his mouth around the opening (a not-unfamiliar behavior), and tipped.

“That’s it,” Kyle said. “Be more drunk.”

Handing the bottle back, Stanley wiped his grinning mouth. “I should say _your_ hair looks to be in excellent form.”

“Well, I did have it cut last week. I’m just unsure of whether it works with my nose. I think the old look hid it rather well.” Leaning in to inspect his face in the mirror, Kyle sighed. True, he had an aquiline nose — but Stanley felt it made him look imperial and interesting. “It’s so unbalanced and awkward. Correct?”

“No.” On the counter, Stanley spotted two cigarettes next to each other. One was marijuana, and one tobacco. He’d rolled both earlier in the afternoon, but his memory betrayed him. Figuring either was good enough, he reached for the closer one, lit, and inhaled. “It suits you. I love it. Want some?” he asked, handing it off to Kyle.

“What is it? Is it drugs?”

“Just a cigarette.”

Kyle declined. “Eric gets so annoyed when I smoke. He calls it ‘bohemian,’ with that air of disdain, you know.”

“What do you care what Eric cares?”

Kyle blushed, biting his lip to draw some blood away from his cheeks. “No reason, you know. You know, just curious what he likes, that’s all.”

“ _Mhmm_.” Winking at himself in the mirror, Stanley tugged at his fringe, and grasped at the joint remaining on the counter. After a hit he turned to Kyle and asked, “Trade?”

“Certainly.” With smoke trailing from his lips, Kyle said, “Eric hates everything. I offered him some drugs after dinner and he scowled at me. I offered him a blow job as well and he called me a ‘fucking Jewess,’ or something, I wasn’t really paying attention — you know how he gets, refusing to come see Miss B perform and I, I don’t know—”

“Oh, but I don’t know why you _care_. I don’t know what you _see_ in him,” Stanley replied. He wished he’d drunk more of the spumante. “So, is my hair all right?”

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Kyle said, choosing to ignore the question about hair. “He’s bloody fucking gorgeous. Don’t act as if you haven’t taken advantage of _that_.”

“Surely one of the least enjoyable things ever, fucking that man.”

Kyle’s eyes darkened for a moment as he turned from the glare of the wall light, but with a shrug he sighed, and asked, “Do you know who’s been making eyes at you for weeks now?” before pausing to take a gulp of spumante. “You will just _die_ if I tell you. Or haven’t you noticed?”

“No idea,” Stanley admitted. “That boy from the commissary? Clyde? Oh, no, he’s too square to actually _look_ at a man. It wouldn’t be Craig, would it? He’s so hateful, and he has that fiancée. And surely it isn’t Miss B, she’s married, so — I don’t know, who else is there? Garrison?”

“Stanley — Garrison?”

“Of course. Well, I think you are just making things up to annoy me.”

“Well, you were closer when you guessed Craig. It’s Token, darling — I think Token is a bit hung up on you.”

Shutting off the light, Stanley left the bathroom, Kyle trailing — the joint at his lips, cigarette left smoldering by the mirror, spumante now depleted and abandoned.

For a moment there was calamity while Stanley rifled through piles — piles of papers, of banknotes, of an exhausted ribbon from his powder-blue Royal electric, of soiled clothing — until finding his keys. Only after pocketing them did Stanley cross his arms, lean against the door, and say, “Bollocks.”

Kyle had to pull the joint from his mouth to answer: “No, it’s true!”

“What would some attractive earl-to-be want with a simple professor’s son?” Stanley simpered, raising his brows in mocking, to mask the real fragility rooted in such a question.

“You’re rather safe for a queer virgin, I think, dear — too gentlemanly to scare anyone off, at least. And absurdly handsome, you know. _So_ easy to look at.”

Stanley pouted, reaching out to grasp the joint from Kyle’s fingers. “It’s cruel of you to distract me,” he said after a long, tense drag. “I’ll never write anything beautiful if you keep getting me sidetracked, stupid things sticking in my brain, you know.”

“I think that’s the reefer, actually.” Grabbing an angora sweater off a pouffe (having left it there last weekend), Kyle pulled it over his head. “Shall we go?”

 

* * *

 

Kyle had decided that Butters needed flowers, but being late (and moreover, miserly), this had somehow escaped accomplishing until they were en route, hurrying along the dark passages through the colleges on the way to Becket Street —to Stanley it seemed a random place for a burlesque establishment, even having gone for two years now.

They stopped in some woman’s marvelous yard, black-eyed yellow-petaled blooms enticing them. After plucking one or two, the gardener rushed out with a broom and chased them away, shouting down the street, “Pansies for pansies!” which was something they giggled at, being in a state where it all just seemed riotous.

They knew the bouncer at the Queen’s Men, a burly old queen who didn’t like them at all, so he made them pay double-cover, just to make a point. Kyle grumbled about it, but foisted over four shillings, too drunk to really protest. “Miss B on yet?” he asked, pulling the sleeve of his angora sweater toward the elbow, and extending the underside of his wrist for stamping.

“Not to my knowledge,” came the gruff reply, “although I dare say she’s well ready. Been writhing under me not an hour ago. Did a turn while the husband had a vada. It’s full of HPs in there. Coming together? Leaving separately?”

“Oh, lord.” Kyle sniffed, jerking his arm from the bouncer, which smeared the ink. “Who hasn’t had _that_? Don’t be impressed with yourself. Cheers.” And he slipped into the club.

“ _She’s_ awfully proud!” the bouncer barked at Stanley as he tendered his change. “You wouldn’t turn me away, would you?”

Stanley shrugged. “Missing the performance, I think,” he replied, following Kyle away from the doorman.

For Kyle a shandy and for Stanley a can of Fuller’s. They sat at a table near the back, locking eyes with no one —until Bradley caught them, anyway, and came over to say hello.

“So proud of him!” Bradley gushed, the wine in his highball threatening to spill with every wild gesticulation. “Prospectus on Tolkien passed! I knew it would, of course it would, he’s a genius — my god, I love him.”

Stanley and Kyle just looked at each other, not knowing how long they might expect this to go on for. What time was curtain, anyway?

“And what are you boys doing?”

“Blake,” Kyle answered at the ready. “I’ve been working on it for years it seems. I like his pretty pictures almost as much as his verse, really.”

“Never read it,” Bradley admitted.

“There’s a first time for everything.” Kyle shrugged, knowing was true and yet unlikely — Bradley was older, and out of university already. He knew everything he was going to learn.

“And you, Stanley?” he asked.

Stanley bristled, annoyed at even the barest hint of friendliness, mourning a particular pair of tight trousers long gone, with Bradley to blame. “Waugh, I should think,” Stanley growled, clutching his beer tighter, “but Garrison won’t approve my prospectus.”

“Oh, what a shame! Why not?”

“Waugh’s too modern, too much of a modernist for the old man to handle,” Kyle answered, sensing Stanley’s disinterest in discussing it further.

“But Waugh and Tolkien are _roughly_ contemporary—”

“Tolkien’s an antiquarian if I’ve ever met one,” Stanley replied, and indeed he had met the Professor on one occasion, perhaps two. “Look, I’ll get it through eventually. I obviously didn’t come out tonight to talk shop.”

“Right,” Bradley agreed, bidding adieus.

“She,” Stanley growled, “will not take a hint.”

“You’ll get the thing passed, you know.”

“Not now, darling.”

The din of the crowd and chipped dishes of stale old toast passed around tables and clinking glasses began to increase in the old room. They were underground, in a half-submerged basement — the whole thing was so clandestine and somewhat pre-war. Not that either of them knew what that meant, _pre-war_ — the idea that Britain might have been at some point partly submerged, only to have been excavated, now on display for the modern era.

Kyle tried to check his watch, but he hadn’t got one, and instead licked at the rim of his drink, impatient.

“Would you ever fuck old Clyde?” Stanley asked.

Kyle’s eyes nearly bulged from his head, the question caught him so off-guard. “Would I _fuck_ Clyde? I think ‘would I fuck a brolly’ is a better question, and the answer is still ‘absolutely under no circumstance.’ It’s a moot point anyway, seeing as Clyde’s the least likely person on the planet to ever make it with another man.”

Stanley’s inner delight at this answer prompted a wide smile, and he said, “Because they’re here, you know.”

“Who’s here?”

“Clyde and Token.”

Kyle shook his head. “Hardly believe it.”

“Believe it. … Wish I had a cigarette.”

“Later, dear.” Kyle patted Stanley’s hand, just as anxious but somewhat more collected. “Her shows are never all _that_ long.”

At the end of his Fuller’s, Stanley got up and went to the bar, restless and annoyed that he’d come down here in the first place. So many depraved queens, so many first-year initiates to the scene — and Clyde and Token, who were already at the bar, gawking at him.

“Oh,” Clyde said first, making it awkward as it could be. “So, you do come down here.”

Stanley rolled his eyes. “I suppose we do,” he said, assuming he and Kyle were the plural second-person, a key little set. “ _Sure_.”

“Together?” Clyde asked.

“Not as such, no, but did we arrive together? We did.”

“That’s all I meant.”

“Of course.”

They eyed each other, Stanley and Clyde, Clyde with uncertainty and Stanley with the narrowed eyes of disdain.

“Figures,” Stanley muttered, collapsing a handful of change onto the bar.

“Exact change helps,” the bartender snapped.

“Bottle of sherry, two glasses,” Stanley replied.

Biting his lip, the barkeep took the change and shuffled off.

“I don’t know what we came down here for,” Clyde said, slapping the bar. “I’ll be in the loo. This whole place is full of queens. Cheers.” As a departing gesture, he slapped Token on the shoulder, squeezing for good luck.

Token nodded in Stanley’s direction; deciding to be bold, he slid his glass down the bar and sidled up next to Stanley. “Evening, Stanley,” he said, voice very cordial. “Pleasure running into you.”

“Evening, my lord,” Stanley replied, turning to face Token. They’d talked before; never off-campus. It seemed this was the first time they’d found themselves outside of the stony cloisters and rocky Victorian sitting rooms that comprised their education.

Shaking his head, Token insisted, “No need for formalities. You’ve known me two years now.”

“Two years and I’ve never seen you out. This is really nerve-wracking.”

A look of inestimable sadness settled on Token’s face, his smile turning down. Stanley had never really noticed how handsome Token was, and his look of intense displeasure just amplified it: square jaw, good cheekbones, nice manicured brows. It was dark in the club, too dark for Stanley to estimate the exact pitch of Token’s skin, but he knew it was nice, too — rich and varied and complex, as dark as Kyle was pale and blush.

“Don’t be nerve-wracked,” Token said. “It’s just a burlesque club. Anyone’s welcome.” His voice was so earnest. Stanley liked it.

“Not anyone.” Stanley felt nervous. “You know, um, not girls, for example.”

“Do I look like a girl?”

“No! I mean, obviously not—”

“Why are you so nervous?”

“You never come in here—”

“Am I not allowed in here now?”                                                                                       

“Token — my lord — I’m sorry, you just _don’t understand_.”

“Then explain it to me. I wanted to ask—”

“Excuse me.” A tap on the shoulder, and Stanley turned around to find the bartender handing over a bottle of sherry and two highball glasses. “Your order.”

“Thanks.” Stanley gathered the bottle and glasses to his chest. “Oh, I have to go — Kyle, you know—”

“All right, well, perhaps after—”

Stanley didn’t know what to say, so he nodded. “Right. Cheers.” And he fled back to his table, where Kyle was sitting, smoking a skinny cigarette.

“That took you _so long_.”

“Token and Clyde cornered me. Well, Token, really. Clyde went to the loo. I wonder if he knows what people do in there.”

“I’m sure he thinks he knows.” Kyle laughed, ashing the cigarette onto the floor. (Had ‘later’ come already?) “Give me a drink, dear. It’s been the longest day. I had an art history tutorial. For Blake, you know, Romantic etchings. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No, I thought you had the day off.”

“I wish I had.”

Stanley handed Kyle a glass of sherry. “My day just went from decent to truly strange.”

“How so?”

“Token tried to talk to me.”

“You talk to him in lessons _all the time_. This sherry is terrible, you know. It’s the driest thing I’ve drunk in my life.”

“Well, what do you want for a 2-pound bottle? Buy your own drink next time. As for Token, darling, it wasn’t so much that he was speaking to me, but that he came to a queer burlesque club to do it, determinedly, as if he meant to pick me up — and with what you said earlier, it threw me. I was always sure he spent his weekends in London with Craig at some club.”

“Well, he may on other weekends.” Kyle smirked, licking sherry from his upper lip. “Christ, it’s been 20 minutes. When is she going on?”

“How do you know how long it’s been? You don’t carry a watch.”

“Forget it — the watch I mean. Don’t you understand? Token is _here to pick you up_ , Stanley.”

“What? That’s ridiculous! What do you know?”

“Me? I don’t _know_ anything. I’ve just been paying attention.”

“Oh, that’s madness. The only thing you pay attention to is Eric’s trousers and William Blake verses.”

“Enticing as those things are, or could be, I could take offense with that remark. I’m a very observant person.”

“Observant of carts, maybe.”

“Speak for yourself!”

“Well, I won’t let this intrusion bother me” — ‘intrusion’ meaning Token’s visit, or Kyle’s interpretations thereof … Stanley was not sure which he meant, possibly both — “because if nothing else I was taught very diligently by my parents that if you want something to go away you can just ignore it, and it will.”

“That’s absurd.” Kyle rolled his eyes, not that Stanley could tell in the dark, as the lights had finally gone down. “Ah, maybe the show will start now.”

Anyone who knew Butters Stotch offstage would be surprised to know that he performed onstage in drag. He was quite reticent, blushed often, and was known to stammer. When he was most nervous he tucked his thumbs between his fore and middle fingers and mashed his fists together, rhythmically. He also sewed his own clothing, his frame slight enough (and just a bit too long) for girls’ jumpers and plum-colored slacks he found at Oxfam. He altered things himself, using a seam-ripper to undo the sides and then remaking them with a sewing machine his father forbade him from using. Butters was a fascinating person. His stage persona was less an act than an amplification, girlish and humble, to great effect.

Stanley found Butters absolutely draining. “He does the same songs, every single week. Why do we go? I mean, why do we come here?”

“To support her.” Kyle snatched the sherry bottle from the floor and helped himself to a second glass. (Stanley noticed that even if Kyle did not like what he was drinking, he still managed to over-pour.) “I mean, she’s beautiful. Don’t you think she’s beautiful? Don’t you wish you could have that sort of courage, to do what she does?”

“No. Women’s clothing? I don’t really want to perform for anyone. I don’t want anyone to really _see_ me. I don’t know — women’s clothing puts me off.”

“I think it _gets_ plenty of men off.”

“Well, obviously. But not me. And not any man I’d like to be with.”

“Well, what sort of man do you want to be with?” Kyle paused, biting his lip, trying to figure out what to say. “Token?”

“No.”

“That boy from Classical archaeology? With the spectacles? He really liked you.”

“He didn’t like me. I liked him. Anyway, we didn’t get on.”

“Well, it didn’t stop you from having him. Let’s see. What about me?”

“You?” Stanley almost dropped his glass of sherry. “Jesus Christ, Kyle! You’re talking over the performance!”

“And you’re drunk.” Kyle sniffed, swirling his glass. “Sometimes I wonder.”

“About what?”

“Nothing.”

“Of course.”

At intermission, the bottle was empty. Kyle held it over his glass and smacked the bottom with the heel of his hand.

“I don’t think you’re going to get anything out of that,” Stanley said.

Whimpering, Kyle sat back down. “I know! I’m just so thirsty. I have to go over to Eric’s after this. If I’m too sober and converse with him he’ll take it as an invitation to be brutal with me. And I don’t know if I can do it, Stanley. I just don’t know if I can do it.”

“Well, you don’t have to _do_ anything, isn’t that the point? Why go over at all? Make him go to you for once.”

“I can’t explain. If you don’t love anyone you can’t understand.”

Stanley’s eyes widened and his pulse quickened. Even drunk, he understood the significance of Kyle’s incoherent musings. “You don’t mean that.”

“No, I do. I love him, dear, or at least I _think_ I do.”

“You like him because he’s got a great big cock and he’s brutal.”

“I hate that he’s brutal,” Kyle corrected.

“You wish you hated that he’s brutal but you’re a right bitch and you won’t do anything you don’t want to.” Stanley felt that miserable feeling, the one where he realized that he was talking directly about his infatuations and how he knew they’d never be reciprocated. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. Words just kept flowing: “I’d do anything that I could to protect you, darling. I don’t know how you could say I haven’t _loved_ anyone. I understand, I understand what it is to love someone who, who just … hurts you. You see him and you think to yourself, if only I could be better, be stronger, be more of what he wants. But I’ve had to resign, because I can’t be _that_. I can’t be brutal like that. I can’t, Kyle, I wish I could.”

Softly, masked by the murmur of the crowd, Kyle said, “I’m sorry about your father, Stanley.”

“Oh.” Stanley’s voice sounded broken. “Right, yes.”

“But there are boys who’ll love you. You don’t _need_ him.”

“A boy’s never loved me,” Stanley said.

“That’s not true.”

“It’s true, a boy never has. Never never _never_.”

“Oh, Stanley, _honey_.” Kyle sounded so disappointed. It made Stanley’s heart sink. “How little you know.”

 

* * *

 

Stanley worked by himself most often, while Kyle was with Eric. He liked to torture himself, sometimes, imagining their unions: short, brutal, with little said and less affection. Stanley had been with Eric, once, but that was two years back. He remembered it as a brief, bloody encounter, Eric grunting the whole time. He was enormous, Eric, with his rower’s arms and shapely legs, but he had the most pleasant face, deep ember eyes that for Stanley recalled the bottom of a bottle of lager. Stanley wished he had eyes that dark and empty, but his were light Delft, something watery about them. The joy of a successful prospectus didn’t move him. Kyle’d said his congratulations, and patted Stanley on the shoulder. “I knew you’d do it, see?” he said. Then he left to go find Eric.

Sitting on his bed with _Scoop_ in his hands, Stanley struggled to avoid dropping the book onto the floor and rolling into a ball, sleeping forever. It was only 8, a Thursday night, and with no lectures on Friday, the weekend had begun. It would stretch into Monday, when Stanley had a Latin lesson at 11. He’d read the next two books of Dio’s _Historia Romana_ already and it had made him smile over descriptions of Decebalus, whom Stanley had last spied maimed in the court of casts in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It had made him miss Kyle dreadfully, and inspired his shift to Waugh. Now that he’d actually passed the prospectus, he’d have to write a thesis. Generally Stanley loved Waugh’s invention of Africa, but tonight he felt stagnant and weary. He did drop the book, shifting to his side, and wished he’d had dinner.

A knock came at the door. It could only be Kyle, he figured, but Kyle was busy. Who must it be? “I’m coming,” Stanley said, sitting up to put on a T-shirt. He kicked errant socks and books from his path to the door, moving a footstool aside and switching on a second lamp.

At the door was Token, Viscount Black, in a wool overcoat. “Stanley,” he said, and he seemed nervous. “Hello.”

“Hello.” Stanley backed away from the threshold, careful not to trip on his mess, those books and socks and crumpled tissues, papers crushed under too many typographical errors and outmoded prospectus drafts. Stanley managed to pick up his copy of Dio, and set it on his writing desk. “Oh,” he said, remembering his manners. “You can come in, of course. Of course.” Token had never visited before. Stanley wasn’t sure why he would now, of all times.

But Token was holding a bottle of champagne. “I hear you’ve passed your prospectus,” he said, setting it on the writing desk next to Dio, “and I came to offer my congratulations.” Token shut the door behind himself. “This is a nice room you’ve got.”

“This isn’t necessary — I mean.” Stanley sunk into his armchair, lamenting his soiled T-shirt and messy room, the clanking heater and crumpled bed linens. This was an earl’s son. What was he doing here? “Thank you, but — it’s not a nice room, and don’t congratulate me, I’m running so far behind, everyone else accomplished the same thing at the start of the term and I — oh, please take your coat off.”

Token laughed, and he hung his coat on a hook by the door. “Thanks. You know, New College is a bit drafty sometimes—”

“It’s all right. I’m not looking for reassurance.”

“Well, I brought this champagne.” Token handed the bottle to Stanley. It was cool to the touch, condensation wetting Stanley’s hands. “It you have two glasses, we could split it.”

“All right.” Stanley got up, moving slowly. It was hot in the room, the heater inefficient. Above the sink was a cupboard, and Stanley took out two jam jars out of which he liked to drink. As he set them on the table, he said, “I don’t mean to assuage what seems like a generous gesture, my lord—”

Token was in the process of coaxing the cork from the bottle. “Oh,” he muttered, “don’t call me that."

“—but I hope you understand if I have to ask, what is it that you’re doing here?” Stanley crossed his arms just as the cork popped onto the table.

“What,” said Token, pouring a first glass, “is wrong with making a friendly gesture?”

“Shouldn’t you be out with his grace or something?”

Token laughed again, as if the idea of _his grace_ were ridiculous. “Craig has a fiancée now, you know, he’s inclined to spend weekends with her. He went into London for dinner—”

“So Clyde, then—”

“What is all of this?” Token handed Stanley a jam jar of champagne. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Not necessarily. But I hope you understand why it’s slightly baffling, seeing as we’re not quite friends and you’ve never come here—”

“Maybe I’ve an ulterior motive,” said Token. “Maybe I want something from you.”

“Surely you know I’ve nothing to give you.”

“Oh.” Token rolled his eyes. “I’m not entirely certain that’s true.” He lifted his jar and drank from it.

Stanley sniffed his drink, the effervescence in his nose. It was a good champagne, but not opulent, a Bollinger Special Cuvée. Stanley was used to two-pound swill, whatever he could buy with what was in his pocket.

“I like that you’ve cut your hair,” said Token. “I mean that you’ve grown out that bleach. It was looking sort of — am I being very rude?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t heard from my own father.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No, I think it’s a bit short now.” Stanley set his glass on the table. He’d emptied it — but then, it was only a jam jar.

Token wasted no time refilling it. “But I do think it looks nice. You’re very handsome.” Token’s own hair was cropped close but with some volume preserved, bristly and serious. It reminded Stanley of Kyle’s hair, because Kyle’s hair was also prone to unruliness, but he had let it erupt unmanaged until recently, neon with henna and tangled up in a mess. It was shorter now, but still quite unlike Token’s, somewhat unbridled.

They refilled their glasses again, Stanley feeling dizzy without supper and suddenly quite fond of Token. “Do you know, it was quite a shock to me running into you at the Queen’s Men,” he said, straightening the sheets on his bed so they could sit there. “I never thought of you as the type.”

“What sort of type do you mean?” Token asked.

“Oh.” Stanley tucked the corners of his duvet under the mattress. “You know, outgoing.”

“I’m outgoing.”

“Not really.”

“If you mean it’s surprising to find me at a drag cabaret, well, you’re correct. That might have been my first time. But Clyde wanted to go and I — I was glad to run into you.”

“Oh, so Clyde frequents the scene, does he? Goes out cottaging, I imagine, charpering for trade—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Stanley regretted saying those things. “Don’t mind me.”

They sat on the bed until the bottle was finished. Half a bottle of champagne made Stanley only tipsy on his empty stomach, and soon he felt rather good about Token, no longer concerned with why he’d come. That was when Token leaned over and kissed him, their glasses clinking together on the floor. Pulling away, Stanley wiped a smile from his lips and said, “I don’t think this is befitting a viscount.”

“What’s unfitting about it? I can’t be typical, I can’t do typical things?”

“I’ve had it impressed upon me that there’s nothing typical about kissing another chap.” Stanley’s arms were crossed, his T-shirt damp under the arms.

“Then I’m not allowed to be _a_ typical?”

“You’re allowed to be anything you like, my lord.”

“Then why do you keep telling me I shouldn’t be here?”

Stanley thought long and hard about what he wanted to express. He wished he had another jar of Bollinger to drink. “There are some things,” he began, shifting on the mattress to punctuate his thoughts, “that we’re really not supposed to vocalize. I don’t, well — Kyle has a lot of fondness for the class system, of course, and it’s difficult not to think of people — my friend Wendy, for instance, The Lady Wendy Testaburger—”

“You know Wendy Testaburger?”

“I know her, yes, she’s not particularly formal in any way, I think she sees herself as something of an iconoclast, but I’ve noticed all these stubborn caveats—”

“Hm.” Token tented his fingers. “You know, it’s interesting to me that you _know_ these fascinating people, but I’m not really here to contemplate them.”

“I am simply saying that as I’ve gathered these rules about how an earl’s son should act—”

“Stop calling me an earl’s son,” said Token. “I know what I am and I’ll do what I please and I hope you understand that I don’t care what Kyle Broflovski would think about it.”

“I never said you should, I just said—”

Token kissed Stanley again, and they collapsed together onto the bed, both fully clothed, but vigorous about the kissing, quick and deep. It seemed obvious that Token had very little practice.

It was Stanley’s resolve, as he lay in bed that night, curled against an earl’s son, that he should do something about it.

 

* * *

 

“What do you know about The Lord Black?”

“Who?” Wendy was loud, not generally, but it was a crowded tea shop, and there were many voices crowding them in the little alcove in the back, dons and their wives meeting for a Sunday afternoon respite. The tea cup in her hands almost clattered against its saucer. “The Lord Black — Token Williams?”

“Yes, him.” Stanley was picking at a scone, hardly hungry after parting with Token that morning.

“Not much. He’s friends with the abominable Craig Tucker, but it’s not as if we all _know_ each other. He’s in your course, isn’t he, so I suspect you know more about him than I do.”

“Yes,” said Stanley. “I suspect I do.” And he raised his eyebrows, and used his knife to slice off a bit of scone, which crumbled in his fingers.

“No,” Wendy gasped. She set her tea cup down.

Stanley just nodded.

“Is everyone in the English department like that?”

“It seems that way.” Stanley brushed the crumbs from his trousers, leaning in. “I haven’t told anyone yet. It was just last night. Not even Kyle, not _anyone_.”

“You _fucked_ Token Williams?” Wendy asked. Her eyes were wider than her teacup.

Stanley shushed her. “Yes,” he said. “Well, no, not — not properly. That is to say—”

“Stanley!” she gasped. “Is this a scandal?”

“I suspect it would be if we discussed it further here. Which is why I think we should go.”

“Very well.” Wendy touched the teapot, sliding her wrists against it. “We’re almost out of tea, anyway.”

They walked down the Broad, which was relatively empty, arm in arm. Wendy wore a sort of wool cape, for which Stanley made fun of her, and she made him pause while she wiped some mud from her white boots with her finger. They were up to her knees with a small heel and a squared toe. “This outfit’s very a la mode, I’ll have you know,” she said. Her hair was dark and thick as always, straight and heavy. Her eyeliner was just as dark and thick, but smudging, running in the rain.

“Sometimes,” Stanley said, trying to shield her with his hands, “I wish — oh, never mind, it’s idiotic.”

“You’re not idiotic.” She straightened up, and slipped her arm though the crook of his. “If anything you’re a bit too smart for 21.”

“Yes, well, I’ve only just gotten my topic approved, actually.”

“At last.” He knew she was joking. “All right, you’re going to have to tell me about Token. We’re far enough away from everyone.” They were all the way to Holywell Street, and almost to New College.

“Let’s turn here.”

Wendy dropped her hand from Stanley’s arm and they ducked against a building, Stanley leaning against it to light a cigarette. Wendy shielded it from the wind and rain.

“We saw Miss B at the Queen’s Men a few weeks back,” Stanley began, pocketing his lighter.

“Oh, you and Token?”

“No, Kyle and I. Actually, he’d been teasing me earlier in the evening about Token fancying me, or I thought he was teasing, but the strangest thing happened, which is that Token and this other chap, Clyde, they showed up later at the cabaret. I was shocked because, well, respectable boys just don’t do that.”

“You’re perfectly respectable.”

Stanley flicked some ash to the ground, biting his lip. “I’m perfectly horrible, you mean.”

“Such a deficit of self-confidence! I shan’t indulge it.”

“I can sustain it without your indulgence, or permission,” said Stanley. “But be that as it may I am certain: the gentry do not mingle with us, in our scene.”

“Oh, you’ve a scene now, suddenly? I thought Oxford was too small.”

“There is one sort of theater,” Stanley said, “at which there is held a semi-weekly cabaret of sorts.”

“Oh! Perhaps next time I could tag along—”

“I don’t know that you’d be welcome,” said Stanley. “In any case, that isn’t the point. The point is, that set has their own conventions. We don’t mingle. Never have. So when Token and Clyde showed up—” Stanley lurched into a recollection of that night at the Queen’s Men, and of the previous night’s events.

When he was done, she said, “I’m sorry, I just don’t imagine you as … passive, in these things. So to speak.”

Stanley cocked an eyebrow, sighing. “To think you imagine it at all.”

“Well, I believe I have a right to the contents of my own head! Besides, there’s a sort of satisfaction in the consideration of two chaps making it. But it seems incorrect to picture you on the receiving end of things, so I’m not altogether sure I’ll be revisiting that.” She closed her eyes for a moment, the wind howling between them. Then, she opened her eyes again. “No, it’s too ghastly, I can’t think of it. Why _don’t_ you get on top?”

“I don’t know,” said Stanley. “I don’t premeditate on these things. We began and it started — happening, and then it seemed too late to affect a change. But that’s besides the point. It’s a sort of academic inquiry, really. I should understand all positions if I wish to perform adequately. Isn’t that sensible?”

“The whole thing’s beyond sensibility,” she said. “That’s what makes it so delicious.” She swept her hair behind her shoulder, and turned to walk back to the end of Holywell Street, away from New College.

 

* * *

 

Spurred by Wendy’s inquisition, he deposited her at the gate of St. Anne’s and headed directly back to New College. It had been in his best intentions today to follow tea with a trip to the library to get cracking on some reporting from the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. His heart longed to go to Kyle, to sprint toward Magdalen’s fine green lawns and muddy river bank, the ancient stonework cold and all-knowing, ripe with the whispers to which it had played witness over many long years. But, no, Kyle might be with Eric, or he might be in a mood, or studying himself. On the walk to St. Anne’s Stanley had been thinking about _it_ , and now that he had left Wendy he found he could not dislodge the thought of _it_ from his brain. Stanley had made it with a good sampling of boys by now, and though he was academically interested in passivity as a matter of comprehensiveness, he found himself hurrying down the road whence he’d come, fixated on the notion of dominating Token.

The problem with seeking out Token was that here, at the threshold of Token’s bedsit, Stanley found Craig. The thought crossed Stanley’s mind that perhaps they were gossiping, but why would they? The idea of Craig Tucker discussing sex was like discussing sex with one’s parents; surely it did not happen. Craig was swilling gin and wearing a suit. “To what do we owe this pleasure?” he asked. Stanley could smell the gin on him. “Or, never mind. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m here to see Token.” Stanley crossed his arms, coolly, wishing for a cigarette. At least it would be something to grasp.

“Well, yes, no doubt you would be.” The ice rattled in Craig’s crystal tumbler. It was lovelier than any of Stanley’s old jam jars. “As he lives here.”

Craig nearly always had a pinched, unpleasant look on his face, which rarely betrayed amusement. Stanley had regarded Craig for years as not terribly attractive, though there was a sort of charisma in the perpetual radiation of hatred. It was this sort of energy that drew Kyle to Eric, Stanley knew, for it had drawn Stanley to Eric at one time, too. It did not hurt, though, that Eric was a beautiful, thick-haired, swaggering mass of virility. Craig Tucker had an undead pallor, and he looked at all times as if he had climbed out of a ditch following a period of hibernation, squinting doubtfully in new light.

If Stanley caught color in Craig’s cheeks that evening, it was impossible to attribute it to the embarrassment of finding himself in the midst of an obvious walkabout, or the drink. In either case, Craig drained the end of it just as Token got up and came to the door, putting a hand on Craig’s shoulder.

“Oh good.” Token somehow possessed the ability to keep cool in situations like these, and he did not miss a beat: “Shall we get on with the Conrad?”

“Yes,” said Stanley, and then, “Pardon?”

“Into the _Heart of Darkness_ , of course,” and it dawned on Stanley that Token was providing adequate cover.

  
“Do you know,” said Stanley to Craig, Stanley loosening his posture a bit, “that Waugh was reporting from Ethiopia when Italy invaded?

“I don’t see what that has to do with the Congo,” Craig replied. “Anyway, fine. I’ve dinner plans anyway.” He shrugged out of Token’s grasp and went to grab his coat.

“Thank god you’ve come,” said Token, in a quiet voice. “He was going on about the duties.”

“Duties?” Stanley asked, stepping inside.

“Death duties,” Craig barked. “My father’s passing.”

“I thought you were terribly thrilled about that.”

“Shut up, Marsh! How can I be excited about anything that’s costing me a fortune?”

“You’re right,” said Stanley, “pardon me. That was terribly rude. I’m sure you loved your father dearly.”

“It was a tragedy to lose him,” said Token. “He really meant well.”

“Meant well!” Craig, coated, shoved his empty tumbler into Token’s hands. Stanley could see they were shaking. “It was those duties that killed him. Your beloved Kyle’s mother and her totalitarian party, they’re to blame for this. So the sodden masses can have their socialist orgies—”

“Craig, dear,” said Token. “You’ll be late.”

“The upkeep alone!” Craig continued. “Half of my home is in mothballs. It killed him, okay."

“You did say that you relished the chance to get into your seat,” Token said.

“Not before I’ve finished my degree! And I’ll have to go down after three years now. And the rest of it. Total mess, this is. It’s the stress that killed him. I’m not going out that way, do you hear me?”

“Oh, Craig,” Token said, in a resigned sort of way. “You’d better get going. “

“Yes. Heaven forbid I should be tardy!” He brushed the sleeves of his coat, as if in the brief moment he had been standing there, it had become dusty. He nodded and said, “Marsh,” by way of parting, and then to Token, “I’ll call.”

“I know.” Crooking fingers, Token bid Stanley to enter.

“I didn’t mean to insult him,” Stanley said, nearly tripping over the ancient threshold, which stuck up fruitlessly from the floor, perhaps to keep the cold out. There was time only to notice that a fire was lit, though burning low, and the room was nice, or perhaps just well-outfitted, with an Afghan rug on the floor and a taxidermy marmot on the mantle.

“He is so easily insulted,” said Token, “and I say that fully believing him to be my dearest friend. But don’t worry about that—” and Token lunged in for Stanley’s lips, awkwardly, missing them and planting a kiss off-center.

So Stanley readjusted. He tried the things that worked with other boys: his hands on Token’s face, pressing hips together, shoving Token toward the bed. It smelled like soot and gin, an unhappy reminder that Craig had just left. The thought was not quite enough to turn Stanley away from his objective. With a knee, he forced Token's thighs apart, a hand grasping at the small of Token's back.

Token, who had been kissing Stanley's mouth and face in a pulsating sort of rhythm, paused for a moment. 

Stanley let his hand rest at the hem of Token's tweeds. As the kissing resumed, Stanley slipped his fingers past the elastic of Token's pants.

"No." 

"No?"

"Let's not do it that way." 

Stanley now found himself flat on his back, his posture of dominance reduced to a memory. 

“Do you mind it this way?” Token asked. He reached for the fly on Stanley’s trousers and began to undo it, with confidence.

“I don’t _mind_.” Stanley was still, staring at Token’s fingers at the hem of his pants. Stanley withdrew his hands from Token’s body, holding them above his head, turning to gaze up at the plaster ceiling.

“But it’s not your preference? We needn’t do it this way, exactly. Or at all. I shouldn’t have presumed—”

“I’d prefer to do it this way than not at all.”

“Oh. Well, all right, then.”

“Yes, do hurry.” It sounded childish as Stanley said it, hating to think he was being impatient. He felt mismatched, for Token’s movements were decisive and he had put an end to Stanley’s scheme with little fanfare. But then, who would Token have made it with? Surely Craig, Stanley figured, thinking back on the way that Craig had been here just before. And Clyde had been at the Queen’s Men as well. Perhaps they all did it together, the way that Bradley and Butters did it, a third chap there to act as an intermediary. Yet the idea of Craig under Token was nauseating; Craig betrayed no scrap of lasciviousness, and he was a tightly wound sort with no obvious interests in anything purely pleasurable.

“Are you all right?” Token asked. It came just as he had slipped off his own pants, revealing everything, in a lewd way unlike Stanley’s previous encounter with Token’s anatomy. The shock, combined with the sickened look that must have crossed Stanley’s face as he thought of Craig, probably betrayed Stanley’s inner unease with this situation. But that _thing_ : it was unusually large, or the largest Stanley had ever seen, and he wanted it. “I mean, we obviously don’t have to do this if you don’t feel all right about it.”

“No! I mean — no, I want to.” Stanley grabbed for it, and the weight of it in his hand was shocking. “I don’t usually talk this much.” He began to blush.

“I don’t know much about how it goes at all,” said Token. “I didn’t expect so much talking, but I can’t call it unwelcome, either.”

“Then perhaps let’s resign ourselves to limited discussions.”

Token chuckled to himself, pushing Stanley down to the mattress by the shoulders.

 

* * *

 

There was nothing to it, this receptive mode. That was the trouble; there was nothing to it.

Token insisted on walking Stanley back to Magdalen. It was night now, or dark out, and supper was approaching. They walked the gray path that snaked between the colleges, which let out to a well-trod bank of the Cherwell. Stanley liked to sit at the river’s edge in the warmer weather and smoke pensively with Kyle, the cigarette passing between them in silence, the sweet, soft smell of the reefer mingling with the acrid dampness of the leaves sticking to the bottoms of their shoes. Would Token sit in the mud, Stanley wondered? Would Token smoke marijuana and gossip about the other third-years? What was there to Token, Stanley wondered, other than the reservation of his character, his shallow interest in Conrad, the length of his cock?

“Bona charvering,” Stanley muttered, letting the words pierce the quiet that otherwise hung about the riverbank.

“Pardon?” Token shook his head. His hands were in his pockets. “Come again?”

“Oh.” Now Stanley felt foolish. Of course Token wouldn’t know. Why would he? “Never mind. I had a nice time.”

They paused at the entry to the college. The dark-green-black Cherwell lapped in gentle swells against the bank. For a moment Stanley wondered if he shouldn’t do something for this man: embrace him, kiss him, say thank you. No, thanking Token for the privilege of receiving his seed was too passive, and Stanley did not want to be passive. This whole experiment had been for nothing. It had failed. He should lean forward and kiss Token here, outside the college, the stupid river sloshing about in ominous motion, the only entity impinging on this moment. Then came the shouts from the college: supper was nearing, and anyone sitting down to the formal meal was rushing for the hall, robes lashing behind through the wide old cloisters. The shouting, the river, and then Stanley knew he couldn’t do it. Token didn’t know what he was doing — it was a dalliance; that was all. A sense of gross dread filled Stanley and he said, “Well, good night.”

“Are you going to eat?” Token asked.

“I’ve a sandwich in my room,” said Stanley, though it was a lie. He would probably drink with no accompaniment.

“Well, if you’ll be all right.”

“I’ll be fine,” Stanley insisted. “I am a 21-year-old man of full majority, Viscount. I shall be quite all right.”

“I suppose you shall,” said Token. He took a step to go, then turned back around. “I really do not like to be called ‘viscount.’ It’s not proper, and I sense it’s not flattering.”

“I don’t mean anything by it,” said Stanley. He felt better in control now. “Well. Good night.”

Rushing to his room, a thought overtook Stanley. He paused and turned, to go to Kyle’s room on the other side of the college, in a small Tudor building the overlooked the river. Kyle would want something to eat. Stanley knew he could not speak of last night, or of this afternoon, to Kyle. Yet a compulsion to find Kyle and eat with him drove Stanley to rush toward Kyle in inglorious haste, barely avoiding the stragglers on their way to dinner.

Kyle was at home, but he was dressing, preparing to go out. “My dear, I wasn’t expecting you,” Kyle said. It was a patently ridiculous thing to assert. What exactly about their friendship was ever expected? “As you can see I’m about to head out for the evening.”

Stanley fell onto a settee, draped with ridiculous scarves of silk and fine crepe wool, the crushed velvet of the cushions sinking under Stanley’s weight. “I went out with Wendy,” he said, as if to cover for his madcap arrival. “We had tea.”

“And how’s Wendy, then?” Kyle was sitting on the bed with a bottle of fragrant Asti in the gap between his crossed legs. He was plucking his brows with a little hand-mirror, a bejeweled thing that Kyle had probably swiped from his mother, spiriting it away. He tossed the tweezers on the bed and rubbed at the redness under his auburn brows. “Go on, dearest, what’s the trouble?”

“No trouble,” said Stanley, “but I thought you might like dinner.”

“I’d love dinner. I’m going out to get some with Eric.”

So that explained it: the Asti, the plucking, the litter of scarves discarded in a furious, insecure haste across the room. Kyle reached over, drinking from the bottle, grasping from his nightstand a little pot of cream foundation. He set the bottle on the floor and began to work on his eyes, rubbing the foundation into the wells that sunk into the sides of his nose. This went on for a few minutes until he was satisfied, pinching his cheeks for color.

“What have you been smoking?” Stanley asked. “Can, may I have some?”

“Don’t be silly. Just bevvying.” Pointedly, he took a sip from the bottle of Asti. Standing up, he smoothed out his corduroys, a lovely salmon pair that clung to the swell of Kyle’s behind like a second, extra-sensual skin. Stanley hadn’t even been hard with Token before, but now his cock stood to attention. He wanted to bury his face in that glorious bounty. 

“Let me ask you something.”

Kyle was searching through his wardrobe for a shirt now. “Anything, of course.”

“What should it ideally be like, receiving it?”

Snorting, Kyle pulled a black turtleneck from the wardrobe. He sniffed it. "I should fire that woman if it were up to me. Everything she washes comes out smelling of mildew."

"It must be nice to have someone external to wash your clothes."

"It must be nice to have a mother who deigns to see after the washing herself. So I could simply take the bus up the road and have my shirts laundered."

"Ah, but she doesn't. I'm an adult now."

"Well, growing up, it must have been nice. Just to, you know. Have someone around."

"It was fine." Stanley shrugged. "Whatever is normal is normal to oneself."

"What a stupid thing to say. What does that even mean?" Kyle tugged the jumper free from the crook of his nose and pulled the hem down to sit at the hem of his corduroys, the garments just meeting. When he reached up and folded over the neck, the hem of the jumper lifted, exposing a strip of bare skin. 

Stanley did not bother an attempt to look away. "I mean it, though. I have been thinking about it — passivity, I mean, receiving. You are the foremost expert."

"Me? I think you mean Butters."

"I don't want her perspective, and I disagree. You are the expert. I am asking genuinely."

"Why? Haven't you taken it before? Stanley, I know you have."

"Well, rarely. I just want to know! What do you _think_? If one were looking to amplify the experience, what would he do?"

"Well, my dear, there is nothing to be done." Kyle came and sat on the bed, next to Stanley, thumbing the label on the bottle of Asti. It was nearly empty, and Kyle offered it to Stanley, who accepted it, taking a sip. "That's rather the point, isn't it? You don't _do_ anything."

"I don't understand, though. The sensation is decent enough, but the mentality is something with which I find myself struggling. How is anyone meant to climb into bed—"

"Bed if you're lucky!"

"—and simply lie there, without some sort of emotional resolution about the meaning of the experience?"

"What sort of meaning is there supposed to be? I hope you haven't finished this." Kyle grabbed the bottle from Stanley's hands. "Either you enjoy the sensation of a cock in your arse, or you don't. I'm not really certain what else there is to it. What else _is_ there to it?" He finished the bottle, tilting back to expose the underside of his chin. Kyle was smooth-shaved and pale, his bulky hair shorter than it had been once. But in the pale, orange glow of a table lamp on the bedside table with a sheer scarf draped over the shade, the shape of Kyle's hair traced a jagged shadow against his sallow skin. 

There was an urge to lean in and kiss the line of that shadow, to dissemble Kyle's careful preparations by falling together in a reckless frenzy of clothed humping. Yet Stanley restrained himself, feeling guilty about Token and, worse, knowing it to be perfectly clear that Kyle wanted Eric, that Kyle would never want someone who was giving it up to a queer virgin peer with no pretense to perversion. The whole thing was rather drab and Stanley's sense of desire began to recede. He put his knees against his chest and hugged them, wishing he had a cigarette, for it would have made him seem more aloof.

"I'm really excited." Kyle stood up, surveying his rump by peering behind his shoulder, fussing in the mirror, dabbing that delightful scent behind his ears and at the pulse points in his wrists. "The whole thing will be perfectly awful. But if I bide my time patiently, if I resist the urge to argue with him too much — the key is to find the perfect balance of tension, neither too much nor too little. Argue with him just enough! Then, I'll get my reward. That's the part that excites me. I can barely stand the waiting!" From a hook on the door he grabbed an outlandish coat: boxy, hip-height, ivory in collar, black fur trim, three big buttons, sleeves to mid-forearm. The fabric was ornate though not attractive, a subtle pinwheel pattern emerging on second glance. It was obviously a woman's coat, and with his hair growing out Kyle had the look of a young lady until one noticed his height, the thickness of his fingers, the knot in his throat peeking just over the turtleneck. He walked with lush determination, though, his behind a pendulous affect, nearly careening to and fro.

Again, Stanley said and did nothing, suppressing his need to push Kyle against the door to the old tudor and thrust against that arse like it was a pillow and he was 15 again, yearning to have someone, anyone to get off with. The maddening thing was that the sex Stanley had experienced very recently had done nothing for him, utterly nothing. He hadn't even climaxed. Sex should have quelled his lust, but instead it had left him inflamed, feeling very needy and very alone, even as Kyle's leather soles accompanied Stanley to the entrance to Magdalen College.

"It never gets better," he muttered, feeling left behind like a child forgotten somewhere exotic: the southeastern seaside, the bustling department store in Birmingham, a roadside goat pen, where for just one penny a boy could feed a handful of pellets to the animals, their threatening buck teeth and alien pupils off-putting and scary. Stanley himself loved livestock, but his eight-year-old niece had stood in the pen last weekend crying and crying, utterly terrified, screaming for her mother. Children should not scream like that, and Stanley felt now a bit lost in the same sense, utterly alone. Here with Kyle as Rhian had been with Stanley in that pen, and yet so unnerved and overwhelmed that the best solution would be to simply drop down to the ground in sobs, unable to articulate any truthful needs or desires.

"What's that?" On a weekend night and with an air of confidence Kyle looked youthfully stylish, the dilettante son of an MP from North Islington, perhaps on his way to see an art band play in the back room of a gritty little club off the high street.

"Nothing, darling. Never mind." Were Stanley to offer his arm, and were Kyle to take it, the effect would have been ruined. There was being an artful dandy, and then there was overkill. Oxford was tolerant of youths; the town was full of them. No one wished to become painfully aware of the queerness lurking down the hall, sitting at the same dinner table.

Eric was standing by the bridge, not far from the boathouse, smoking something (knowing Eric, probably just a cigarette) and scowling. Dropping the butt to the ground, he smothered the smoldering ashes with the heel of his loafer. “You’re late.”

“Dear, I’m never late,” said Kyle, “merely delayed.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Eric held out his hand for Stanley to take. “Aren’t you a good auntie, chaperoning for me?”

Grasping Eric’s hand, Stanley cocked a brow. “Take care of her, would you?” It was dripping with irony, and Stanley felt the burn of self-hatred as he said it. Here was Eric, massive in height and thick-necked, a consummate glutton if Stanley had ever known one. If anyone were able to protect Kyle it would have to have been Eric, for he was well-muscled from vigorous rowing. Not, of course, that Eric _would_ ; if ever they were caught Stanley suspected Eric would be more likely to flee. Eric never did any schoolwork; how could he possibly muster the will to act as Kyle’s savior? Yet inherent within this coupling was _potential_ , and Stanley felt the cruel absence of any such potential between Kyle and himself. Eric would never give Kyle a respectable existence, a fact which made Kyle miserable; yet the fact that Kyle wanted such a thing nearly drove Stanley to tears when he thought about it. Eric passed, easily, socializing coolly with his rowing teammates and casually stringing along actual girls from college mixers. Stanley couldn’t do that, and it crushed him, despite the fact he didn’t truly want to.

“She’ll be fine,” Eric huffed. He always spoke as if labored, unless he was _on_ about something, in which case he prattled like a champion, spewing rubbish with ease. “Wine her, dine her. You know the next bit.”

“Yes,” Stanley agreed. “Cheers.”

Making a sad face, Kyle patted Stanley on the shoulder. “Don’t wait up,” he said. There was something sorrowful there, as if he wished Stanley might come.

About to announce, “I haven’t had dinner, so, I’ll join you,” Stanley was not surprised when they turned to go over the bridge. It was only on the walk back to his rooms that Stanley considered the possibility that Kyle had not wanted Stanley to come; perhaps, Stanley mused, Kyle had just wanted him to go away.

 

* * *

 

It was cold in Stanley’s room, but he bore it in silence, looking forward to his evening routine: type quotes from Waugh’s biography of Rossetti, which made no sense to Stanley as a component of the corpus; dinner with Token at the Rotary, where there were no prices on the menu; a moment for conjugal activity; and then, Stanley would sneak out of Token’s room and fly back to his own, feeling nervous and exhilarated. It was a Saturday evening, candles flickering around the typewriter, a cigarette burning low on the flat, polished surface of dolostone the old man had given Stanley for his birthday. It was the latest in a series of beige and forgettable rocks that Professor Marsh had presented to his son over the course of Stanley’s lifetime. The best use Stanley could conjure for this latest specimen was makeshift ashtray.

 Stanley did not understand these rocks, and he was resistant to his father’s explanations. “There’s quite a bit of controversy surrounding dolostone,” Randy had attempted to explain, but Stanley had let it wash over him. His father’s selfishness was such that Stanley could not bear to sustain another year of rock gifts; on his next birthday he intended to be as far from his parents as possible. He was not certain at present how to enact such a plan, but it would come to him in time. In the meanwhile, Stanley was at least conscious of the fact that there was a fundamental miscommunication between the two of them; as little as Stanley understood his father the professor, so Randy too did not understand his son. He would have scoffed at Waugh’s treatise on one of the masters of Pre-Raphaelite art, and dismissed the premise of Stanley’s work on Waugh entirely. Randy and Sharon did not understand art; they were practical people, and they tended to be upset that their son had inadvertently grown up this way. It was words that Stanley loved, words and beauty; had it been a rock with any character at all, Stanley might have loved it duly. But it was just a flat piece of dolostone, something meant to be ignored by the side of the road. Stanley wished his father had left it there.

Sitting at the typewriter, sipping brandy from a jam jar, Stanley’s mind wandered to the topic of beauty. He was not much for the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but Waugh’s prose in general could move Stanley to tears. To that effect, he closed his eyes as he swallowed the brandy, thinking of his most beloved passage of _Brideshead_ :

_“I was out of my mind for a day or two,” he said, “I kept thinking I was back in Oxford. You went to my house? Did you like it? Is Kurt still there? I won’t ask you if you liked Kurt; no one does. It’s funny—I couldn’t get on without him, you know.”_

It was beautiful to Stanley not for the quality of the prose but the emotion within, the sentiment expressed by Sebastian mirroring his own life: Sebastian “couldn’t get on without him,” yet “no one” liked Kurt. Stanley reread the passage to himself, and it stung.

After emptying the jam jar, Stanley reached for a sheet of loose-leaf and wound it through the gears of his typewriter. He propped open _Brideshead Revisited_ by creasing the weight of the spine under the bottom of his bottle of brandy. Licking his lips, he began to type out the passage: Return. Return. Indent. Open inverted commas. _I was_ —

The trouble with typing was that it made hearing other noises difficult, the racket of the keys a fury that drowned out shouting, the kettle whistling, or in this instance, a knocking at the door. It was only when Stanley paused to lift the bottle of brandy, to refill his cup, that he heard it. “Who’s there?” he asked, approaching.

“It’s me,” said Kyle, from the other side of the door. “Stanley, I need you.” There was a desperate tinge to it, a bit of a whine.

Stanley opened it immediately, of course.

“It’s dreadful!” said Kyle. He was dressed in wrinkled black trousers and his pink angora sweater. It was too cold in the corridors for such an ensemble, and Stanley wondered for a moment if Kyle had locked himself out.

“Are you all right?” Stanley asked. “You can stay here and we can see the lodge about a spare key in the morning.”

“No, I’ve got my key here.” Kyle barged his way in, shouldering past Stanley and over the threshold. “Close the door, please, it’s freezing out there. Besides, I don’t need all of college hearing this.”

“Is it about Eric?”

“Eric?” Kyle began to unbutton those rumbled black slacks. “No, I haven’t seen him since our pint after last night’s lesson, when he called me a harlot and dumped ashes on my head.”

“He dumped ashes on your head?”

“More like he was smoking a damned cigar and he ashed it in my hair.”

“Kyle!”

“What? I’m fine.” Bare-legged now, Kyle crawled into Stanley’s bed. “Fuck Eric, I’m not here about him.”

“Then—” Stanley grabbed the brandy from his writing desk and brought it to Kyle.

“It’s my brother,” said Kyle. “He’s missing.” He sipped liberally from the bottle, a bead of brandy escaping to roll down his chin.

“Missing how? Was he coming home? Perhaps he's just late."

"He is not just late. He vanished last Sunday night. On Monday morning they found a note expressly stating that he was leaving and wouldn't be found. He hasn't been home and my parents have only told me just now."

"Just _now_?"

"Well, it was the Sabbath."

"But, all week?"

"He might have turned up." Kyle shrugged, concentrating on the bottle. "But he's just gone."

"What did the note say?"

"Beyond the general? I don't know, I've not personally read it."

"Darling." Stanley came to sit by Kyle on the bed, putting an arm around Kyle's shoulders. "I'm sure he'll turn up."

"He may well," said Kyle, miserably. "My mother's got Scotland Yard on it."

"They'll find him."

"Will they? You've met him, Stanley. He's so _angry_. What if he doesn't want to be found?"

"Well, surely he doesn't _want_ to be found. It's a childish fantasy, running away. We all want to run _somewhere_ , don't we, yet only the truly desperate go down that road."

"Are you saying he was desperate?"

"Well, I don't know — I have only met him briefly."

"You lived with us all summer!"

"Yes, and he kept himself shut away in his room. Kyle, people do not simply disappear. He is probably somewhere in London, getting up to some trouble, and he'll come back when he is bored. I was 14 or 15 once, and I longed to do the same. It's a passing fancy."

Pulling his mouth from the bottle, Kyle said, "But kids are doing this now, you know, they're just abandoning all rational sense and acting like completely self-centered imbeciles."

"That's overdramatic."

"Dramatic? Stanley, my brother is missing! He's disappeared!"

"I know," said Stanley. "I'm truly sorry." He crossed his arms, trying to appear businesslike about this situation. It was difficult to know how to react to such news, seeing as he neither knew nor much liked Ike in the first place. "Is there anything I could do?"

"Oh, you're a dear," said Kyle, falling to his side. "Could I sleep here tonight? I'll catch a train down in the morning. I have to go home. I feel — I need to be with my parents."

"How long will you be gone for?"

"Oh, a night or two. I can't afford to be away for much longer than that. My father told me not to come, but he can't lock me out. I'm going."

They got ready for bed, Kyle sharing Stanley's toothbrush and borrowing a pair of Stanley's pajamas. It was cold in the room, and though Stanley longed for skin-to-skin contact, the draft demanded that they get into bed clothed. Finally, Stanley turned the light out. There was something chaste and relieving about their closeness, sharing a coverlet and the quilt Stanley's grandmother had crocheted for him before she'd died. Stanley was conscious of the niggling at his backside, a reminder that earlier in the day he had seen Token. They had taken a walk along the river and returned to this very room, this very bed. Now the thought of it made Stanley feel guilt, for letting Kyle into bed with him. There had never been such guilt before, but somehow Stanley knew that if Token were to find out about this, missing brother or not, his feelings might be hurt.

"Did you tell Eric?" Stanley asked. The words hung there in the darkness for a moment.

"Jesus, no," said Kyle. He was whispering, a nighttime volume. "Why would I?"

"Why wouldn't you? Wouldn't you tell him that?"

It took Kyle a moment to answer, and when he did, he sounded pained. "He has no empathy," Kyle said, "no compassion. Perhaps if I'd wanted to be made fun of, I'd have told Eric. He certainly wouldn't have offered to help."

"I can't believe that," said Stanley, "even of him."

"Well, believe it." There was a pause, and Kyle filled it by pressing a dry peck to Stanley's lips. "That's not why I like him." Lifting his thigh, Kyle ran his knee into the crease of Stanley's clenched legs, bouncing once or twice against Stanley's pajama-clad testicles. "I'll fill you in when I get back, of course. When I know more about the situation." Kyle waited for a response, and when one was not forthcoming, he merely said, "Good night."

"Good night," Stanley echoed. His voice was brittle and dry.


	2. Hilary: January-March 1967

After Christmas, Stanley went into London. He had loved the holiday as a boy and in the present found it challenging to recall why. They said it was a holiday for children, and that much was true; his sister’s brats were eight and 18 months. Rhian laid waste to the crackers before they were meant to be pulled, leaving the cardboard in a pile on the dining room table while the adults were upstairs getting ready for midnight mass. Phoebe just squirmed in Stanley’s arms, kicking and howling. A non-believer himself, his penance for refusal to participate was stewardship of the children while his family was out. To calm Phoebe down he told her about Sebastian and Aloysius, and the adventures they’d had. “She’s an idiot,” said Stanley’s sister, on the way out of the house. “She won’t absorb a thing you’re saying about whatsit and who-knows-what.”

Stanley half expected Shelly’s husband to interject, though he should not have been surprised that the old man didn’t. He was in his 60s and had never said a word to Stanley, not even in passing. They all shuffled out of the house for church and left him there to put the baby in her basinet and read Rhian a story. Phoebe howled for an hour but eventually the house became still. Stanley swept up the Christmas crackers and put away the congealing pudding, finished wrapping up his gifts to his mother and his sister, and typed a note to his father:

_Though there is nothing I could give you that you could not purchase for yourself, I felt at the holiday I might put my feelings into words. I am grateful for the education you have secured for me and the freedom you have begrudgingly allowed me to find out what I would like to pursue in life. I wish I could love science, as you do, for there appears to be great comfort in the certainty of knowing facts and coming to discover new ones. I believe my truth, however, lies in letters. I should read and write for years if I could, for fiction is the only sense of certainty I have ever found. There is nothing vile in stories, only comfort, for at worst the vileness in stories is invented, or cautionary. I am proud to tell you that my prospectus on the oeuvre of Evelyn Waugh has been accepted and I am researching a thesis on his works which allows me to read as much of his writing as I please. There may be a future for me in the academe, or I may wish to emulate Waugh and write my truths. Whichever comes to pass please understand that while you see me in some senses as deficient, I am happy now at the very least. Thank you for indulging me. I know no man wishes to have a homosexual for his only son but yours is going to turn out all right I should think. Happy Christmas and best wishes in the new year from your son, Stanley_

When the typewriter ink was dry Stanley used a fountain pen fitted with a wide nib to sign his name with a flourish. He blew on it until it set and folded it into an envelope which he stuffed into his father’s stocking. With the girl in his bed he curled up on the floor with a quilt and a pillow. When Rhian jolted awake in the morning crying, "Christmas, it's Christmas!" she leapt from the bed and put a foot in Stanley's face. It was then that Stanley knew he was well over it.

When Shelly and her family finally cleared out after dinner, Stanley's father asked him to come into the parlor and have a chat. Randy Marsh was a triumphant grand-stander, short on both temper and will to accommodate. Stanley knew from the moment they sat down, beers in hand, that the conversation would not be pleasant.

"Thanks for the note," he said.

"You're welcome," Stanley replied.

"It was the least you could do, I suppose."

"The least I could have done would have been nothing."

"I suppose that's true."

"I could build a fire," said Stanley. "In the backyard. A real one."

"What would the point of that be, Stanley? Why couldn't we just sit in the house, where it's warm already?"

"I suppose we could do." Stanley drank his beer too quickly, unsure of what else to say.

"I guess it's good that you're happy," Randy said, "having settled on this plan to do — what, exactly?"

"Write, sir."

"Will you take a fourth year?"

"I might do."

"Would you go on for an M. Phil?"

"I could do," said Stanley. "I just know I want to write."

"Well, son, what is it that you intend to write?"

"I don't know. I only know I have the capacity in me to write _something_. And I want to read. I feel I have things inside of me I want to tell to someone, these, er — these things."

For a moment Randy sat there, drinking his beer. Stanley hated to look on him, for he hated to think of his father as some possible future version of himself. There was gray in his hair and he wore an ill-groomed mustache that harkened back to the very worst of the 1930s. Stanley hated to think that someday he might find himself stuck in the mannerisms and efforts of his youth; it was a major facet of his decision to cut out the bleach from his shaggy hair. It was just now growing longer again, but it was back to regular old blackish-brown. Stanley wondered why his father hadn't said anything about it. He hadn't seen the old man since his birthday.

"You know," Randy said, "I haven't heard you mention what you intend to do about funding."

"Funding?"

"Yes, you know, a living. Do you intend to eke one out?"

"I intend to write," Stanley repeated.

"But son, you cannot simply sit down at your old machine and type money into existence. It doesn't work that way. There's an intermediary step between writing and making a living and you appear to be without any conception of how to connect the two."

"Then perhaps I'll do that fourth year. Would you approve of that?"

"I wouldn't be against it." The beer finished, Randy crushed it in his hand. "Any girls?"

"I know some girls." Stanley thought of Wendy and her thick fringe and short skirts. "What about them?"

"Have you been seeing any?"

"I _see_ girls all the time, but I'm not dating one."

"Of course not."

"Well, I don't quite know what you want me to say," said Stanley.

"I want you to say you're at least trying," said Randy. "Couldn't you at least _try_?"

Stanley wanted to hate his father for sentiments like this, but at the very least Randy sounded sincere. In some sense Stanley felt sorry for his old man, for there was truly no comprehending what it was to be _like that_ unless one was like that himself. "I absolutely swear that if I found myself attracted to a young lady I would ask her out," Stanley said. "I might even come to love her, if you can believe it. I feel that love is a gift and I don't discriminate at its source." He thought of Token, and how unlikely it was that Token had taken a fancy to him, how fortunate. "I'm receptive to almost anything, you know. It's simply that I can only receive that which is being transmitted."

"That's rubbish." Randy sighed deeply, slumping in his chair. "Do you want to get arrested?"

"No."

"Well, you do know this is illegal. I should hate to see you in some sort of trouble. I should hate to have to come and bail you out from some stockade."

"It's not the seventeenth century, Dad, I don't know that there are stockades."

"Oh, just you see," Randy grumbled, and he got up. Evidently the conversation was over.

 

* * *

 

For Christmas Stanley’s parents gave him two spools of typewriter tape, a gray cable-knit jumper, and pocket money. It was meant to last him all term. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” his mother bid him. “Have you any idea what you’ll spend it on?”

“Socializing, I should think,” Stanley replied.

“Yes, that would be ideal. Daddy and I thought you might take that friend of yours out.”

“Kyle?”

“No, of course not, that posh young lady.”

“Oh, you mean Wendy,” said Stanley. They were in the car and he was in the passenger seat, his rucksack on his knees. It was the day after Christmas and he sighed at the thought of being trapped in the car for even another moment, so thoroughly done with this was he.

“Yes, Wendy. She seems like a nice girl.” She had been to dinner with the Marshes once, at the start of second year. They had beamed at her as if she were the answer to their prayers, and Stanley hated to admit that in some small part he had been pleased to let them think, for a moment, that there was a glimmer of hope in that gesture. He had invited her for his birthday, though, purely to demonstrate to her that his family was just as he’d described them.

“She _is_ a nice girl.” The approach to the station was trafficky, with travelers presumably returning to work after Christmas. Stanley was on leave but it was, in fact, a Monday, which meant that life would go on after Boxing Day. “She’s _too_ nice for me. Even if I were attracted to her, and she returned it, her father’s an earl. She thinks fairly highly of herself and she’d not muck around with the likes of me.”

“You never know,” said Stanley’s mother. “Maybe she fancies you.”

Clutch tightening on his bag, Stanley replied, “Well, I don’t fancy her, or any girl, I don’t like girls and you know it, so why do you push me about it?”

“Oh, Stanley,” she said. “You could just _try_.”

They were close enough to the station now, paused behind a lorry, that Stanley felt safe opening the door and getting out.

“Oh, don’t get out here,” she said, “let me take you to the entrance.”

“It’s 30 meters away, thanks, I’ll walk.” He opened the door and looked down at her. He was wearing his new, nice gray sweater. It was woolen, warm, and itchy. “You know, dad said the same thing to me, about trying. Do you think I’d be this way if I could help it? I’m only doing what I can.”

“Stanley—” Now the cars behind them were honking at her.

“Wendy’s a nice girl and she deserves to be with a nice boy befitting her rank. Why would you want her saddled with _me_?”

“We just want you to be happy,” she said, “Daddy and I. We do.”

“I’m going to be happy. I’m going to write and I’m going to be happy. I’ll be home on the 15th.” He slammed the car door and hoofed it to the station.

 

* * *

 

Kyle was waiting for Stanley at Victoria wearing an absurd opera-style coat of black fur which was overlarge and, Stanley immediately deduced, must have been Kyle’s mother’s. He was sitting alone on a bench reading Tatler in a full face of makeup. Stanley was shocked that Kyle had not been arrested, but then, this was urban life; you came across odd sorts here and there. “My dear,” Kyle said, looking up and folding over his periodical. “I have been sitting here for quite some time, you know, your coach was late.”

“Nice coat,” said Stanley.

“Oh, don’t be a bitch. Help me up.” He stuck out a hand.

Obliging, Stanley pulled Kyle to his feet. “I hope you’ve got a car waiting, darling, I should hate to get on the Underground like that. I’m not sure your adoring public will be ready to receive you.”

“Oh, Stanley, so provincial! I thought we could take a taxi to the Bucky first and have a drink.”

“I’ve got my luggage, though.”

“What luggage, that old thing? Please, you’ll be the belle of the ball. I’m _languishing_ , please, I have to be out. I can’t stand another minute in that house.”

“Then it’s lucky you’re leaving — when, tonight?”

“Tomorrow morning, of course, but dinner’s at 6. And you’re coming, you know, and they surely won’t let us go out _after_. I must be amongst my people, Stanley, if I am to be trapped with them and their grief for two weeks I might implode!”

“Is it that bad?"

“God, it’s _worse_. My father hasn’t stopped crying for a week. I’ve barely seen my mother. She can’t stand to look me in the face.”

“It might be the full eke, then.”

“This? If I’d seen her today it might have given her pause. But I slept until noon, of course, and then came to meet you. Meanwhile, she’s gone to a meeting — on Boxing Day, Stanley! And we’re flying overseas tomorrow. I can’t deal with it. Please don’t make me get on that plane with them.”

“Don’t you want to see your family, then?”

“I want to stuff myself full of Hershey bars and dance to rock’n’roll with dinges and pick up some duchess at the docks and ask her to make me her wife,” said Kyle. “You know, American stuff.”

“Aren’t your parents worried Ike might return while they’re away?”

“Precisely. Or rather, they hope he’ll come back to the house to get his things while we’re gone, and you’ll be there to catch him. Why else do you think they’d let you stay over while we’re out of the country?”

“I just presumed I had charmed them.”

“If he comes back you must telephone immediately of course. I shall give you the number."

"I've never called internationally before."

"Oh, it's great fun! 

Stanley could not quite tell if this comment was meant to be sarcastic.

Despite a previous summer spent in London and a number of short trips, Stanley did not know his way around the place too well. This resulted, during the cab ride to Soho, in his wondering whether perhaps they weren't closer than not. Still, he was glad not to have to carry his bag on the Tube or the bus. What was more, Kyle fussed with lipstick in the backseat of the taxi, applying another layer though he seemed well-covered as things stood. 

“Believe me,” Kyle said as he stared out the window, “my family’s nothing special. My mother and my aunt will commiserate and shop and my father will sit in the house reading legal journals and I shall be left to shadow my cousin, and he is dreadful. Ike would at least diffuse the tension to some degree by being a petulant little bugger but without him there will be no one to shield me from Kyle and his — how to describe it? He whines when he speaks, always complaining. ‘I can’t, I can’t, it’s bad for my digestion,’ he’s sort of like that. And he asks the stupidest questions — do you have Coca-cola in England? Do you have telly? Do you have maths in school? He’s been here to visit us repeatedly, he shouldn’t need to ask. But he will, because he has nothing else to say, merely that and complaining, ‘it’s so cold this winter, it makes my skin so dry’ — do you know, I want to say to him, ‘I have some cold cream in my trunk, heartface, if it can help me fit a cucumber up my aris I imagine it would do wonders for your skin.’ … But I wouldn’t say that to him, of course. Let him suffer.”

“What about your uncle?”

“Who? Oh, my uncle. He works. He’ll have dinner with us once, maybe. Nothing special.”

“It sounds preferable to holidays with my family.”

“Oh, I know, with all those little brats running around, it must be horrid.”

“Well, there’s only two of them. They’re all right. I’m not much for children but I can tolerate this lot. They’re my blood, you know, I suppose that makes a difference.”

“You’d make a stunning father, Stanley, really.”

“Thank you, darling, that’s kind.”

Kyle had no response to this, merely shrugging it off. He looked at his nails and said, “I intend to drink myself ill, if you must know.” Then he sighed. “I really take this varnish off tonight. My father will burst into tears if I get on an aeroplane like this, it’s really tragic.” He drew out the _air_ on _aer-_ oh-plane, the emphasis on that syllable making the word sound fussy in Stanley’s ears. “Well, it’s his problem I suppose,” Kyle concluded.

When the cab pulled up to the curb on Oxford Street near Wardour, Stanley and Kyle split the fare and ducked out of the crowd’s path. “Will you buy me a drink?” Kyle asked. “I’ll tell you my dilemma.”

“What dilemma?” Stanley asked. His grip on the rucksack was failing, and he paused to reaffirm his hold. It was not too heavy but awkwardly shaped, and difficult to keep out of the way of pedestrians.

“I said I’d tell you if you got me a bevvy.”

“Well, all right. But then you’ll have to listen to mine, of course.”

The pub was cramped with queens, a real crowd drinking and eating late lunches or early dinners. A few odd men reached for Kyle as he led Stanley around on the hunt for a table, grabbing at Kyle’s thighs and rear end through his fur coat. Kyle loved to make a point of deflecting this attention, though Stanley could see Kyle was turned on by it in the way his posture became straighter and he snapped back at their entreaties.

“Oi, beautiful, it’s our wedding night,” one shouted. He was red in the face and fat, nearly grafted to a bar stool he must have first occupied hours before.

“I’ve a husband, thanks,” Kyle snapped, though he had a smile on his face. To another, he said, “I don’t make it with sea queens!”

“This place is full-up,” said Stanley, and Kyle gave him a look that all but asked where else Stanley thought they might go. The truth was, neither of them knew anywhere else. So long as the pub wasn’t raided the Duke of Buckingham was safe. Not that Kyle seemed eager to leave; he had obviously dressed up for this. When Stanley had paid for their drinks (a shandy for Kyle and a gin and tonic for Stanley), they stood in a corner by the underused women’s loo.

“So what’s your dilemma?” Stanley asked. He leaned against the wall with his bag between his legs.

“You go first,” Kyle said.

“I paid,” Stanley insisted.

With a deep sigh, Kyle stared into his drink.

“You don’t want to leave town,” Stanley guessed.

“Well, no, but it’s not that.” Kyle looked up. “Should I see Eric tonight?”

“ _That_ is your dilemma?”

“Well, yes,” said Kyle, “what _else_ would it be?"

“And here I thought you had put all that slap on for me.”

“Stanley, you don’t care what’s on my face.”

“I do!”

“Well, then you need a hobby.” Kyle smirked and sipped his shandy, getting lipstick on the rim of the pint.

“Look,” said Stanley, “it’s hardly up to me whether you see him. I don’t see you bringing him back to your parents’.”

“No, we’d probably go back to his place."

“And where is his place?”

“I don’t know, wherever his mother’s implanted herself recently, with some current beau.”

“That hardly sounds appealing.”

Kyle sighed. “I like to think I can lose myself in the act. Ignore the surroundings. Maybe her chap’s got a nice flat or something. Now I’m curious. Or we could do it in some cottage, you know, however.”

Hearing this gave Stanley a sinking feeling of envy, or perhaps it was mere frustration. He was right here, after all; if Kyle needed to make it with someone, why not stick close to home? There was disappointment, too, in the idea that Kyle had gotten himself all done up and dragged Stanley out, and in this premise had been the suggestion of flirtation, and now it was apparent that none of it was for Stanley at all, and that was confounding. Also there was the frustration of having paid for Kyle’s drink, at Kyle’s insistence, and Stanley hadn’t received even a ‘thank you.’

“I don’t care what you do with Eric,” he said, polishing off his gin and tonic. He had drunk it quicker than he’d realized, or meant to. “Call him, don’t call him. I’m getting another drink. Will you watch my bag?”

“Certainly.” Kyle sounded caught off-guard.

At the bar Stanley ordered a double gin, straight-up. He knew he should pace himself or at least thin his drinks out, but all this stuff about Eric was really throwing him for a loop. It wasn’t so much that Stanley minded getting drunk in the afternoon on Boxing Day; it was more that he was going to vomit up all of the money his parents had given him for Christmas if he kept going at this rate. To his good fortune, though, an old queen with a grating East End accent put his hand in the back hem of Stanley’s trousers and said, “Cheers, ducky, this one’s on me.”

“Thanks,” Stanley said in reply.

“What’s a great big thing like you doing here all by her lonesome?”

“I’m not alone, I’m with my friend. That’s her there, ajax the loo.”

“Oooh,” said the man, in a derisive sort of way. “Look at the esong on that old girl. I bet she doesn’t know the first thing.”

“She knows the first thing,” said Stanley, “though I’m not sure she knows the second or the third."

He laughed, the old man, wide-mouthed and showing off gold teeth toward the back. There were an awful lot of sea queens at the Bucky, and Stanley figured they must have been in on leave. Surely there were pubs and places for cruising closer to the docks, but the Bucky with its forced Victorian charm and acid-etched glass details felt a bit camp and there was a good jukebox. At the moment Dusty was crooning over the speakers; all Stanley could think was that Butters would have loved it and sung along.

“I’ve got your number, ducky. Your mother’s been charpering for a butch omee with big blue eyes.”

“Well, I’m terribly flattered,” said Stanley, “but my friend is waiting.”

“She can come along, if she wants.”

“I don’t think she wants that.” Now he felt bad. “Thanks for the drink, though. Cheers.”

“I think I’ve just had an odd experience,” Stanley said when he returned to Kyle.

“Oh, you _think_ so. Can’t you tell?” He folded up his copy of Tatler and bent over to stuff it into Stanley’s bag.

“Some old sea queen called me a ‘butch’ and told me he had my number.”

Kyle’s mouth turned down. “Well, Stanley,” he said, “of course she’s got your number, look around.”

“But a butch, though.”

“In a relative sense.” Kyle gestured to himself. “Look, I’m out of drink, would you get me another?”

“Why should I get you anything? Call Eric and ask him to get it.”

“What _is_ your problem with Eric?” Kyle snapped. “I know you had him first but you were very clear on not wanting him. You told me he was TBH!”

“He _is_ , but that’s not my problem. _I_ don’t want him. I just don’t understand why _you_ want him. He treats you like rubbish. You don’t even like him.”

“Stanley, he’s _gorgeous_!”

“You’re shallow like the murky water in the trough of a fountain in winter,” Stanley replied.

“Oh, that’s clever, dear, did Waugh come up with that one?”

“No, I did!”

“Well, it’s stupid, and you’re stupid if you think I could get anyone better!”

“You’re stupid and vain if you think literally _anyone_ wouldn’t be better!”

“You’d better be nice to me!” Kyle threatened. “Or you can sleep on the street.”

“I’ve a return ticket,” said Stanley. “I wouldn’t sleep on the street, I’d go back to Oxford.”

“Enjoy!” said Kyle, and he pushed Stanley toward the wall and swept off — to the bar, presumably. The hem of his coat brushed Stanley’s shins on the way.

Finishing his drink, Stanley stood in the corner, stewing. A couple came over to chat with him; one was in full drag, her lips smeared an alarming crimson color to match her sequined pumps. The other was another sailor, with tattoos up and down his hairy forearms. “This me missus,” he said, introducing Stanley to the drag queen. “Georgina, and I’m Randy.”

“I’m not,” said Stanley. “Just got in town today.”

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” said Georgina, pinching his cheek. “Come back with us, darling, we’ve got a flat in Fitzrovia. It’s big enough for three.”

“No thanks,” said Stanley. “I’m not looking.”

“Don’t be strange,” said Randy, if that was his real name. It was Stanley’s father’s name, too, and something about that was off-putting. Randy’s breath smelled like he’d spent all winter living on a ship, eating nothing but sardines. Something about the ease with which Stanley could have claimed the opportunity made it just appealing enough for him to feel regret in turning it down.

“My friend’s at the bar,” said Stanley. “I’ve got to make sure she’s not in trouble.” He picked up his sack and handed his empty glass to Randy, going off to find Kyle.

Gloria Jones was crooning throughout the pub, her voice crinkled, jumping when the needle skipped. The place was crammed with bodies, thick with humid breathing and warm despite the weather outside. Someone splashed a stout on Stanley’s bag and the scent of it wafted to his face; someone grabbed for his behind and squealed, “Where you going, love?” and someone else cried, “He’s NTBH, that one!” He had never been in the Bucky with a crowd before; small white lights twined around aluminum tinsel above the bar. Paper loops made colorful chains across the tin ceiling, and the carpet floor was soggy with spilt drinks. He felt it difficult to breathe, presumably from the thick smoke needling at his asthma. A part of him was sure it was Kyle, though; where was Kyle? Had he left, had he gone home with someone?

Not yet, Stanley learned. He was seated at a booth with a crowd of older men, none of whom struck Stanley as attractive. Unfortunately they had been buying Kyle drinks, and when Stanley stood over the booth Kyle slurred, “Here’s my friend, boys. I told you he’d turn up.”

“Maybe we should go,” Stanley said.

“You go, heartface. I’ve made some new friends.”

“Er, hullo.” Stanley felt cowed, and sat down.

“This is Marvin,” said Kyle, “and Geoffrey—”

Stanley didn’t care to learn their names.

“Would you like a drink, ducky?” someone asked him.

“No thank you,” he said. “Darling, can we go?”

“No! I’m having fun!” Kyle seemed to be working on two drinks at once. “You’re my best friend, Stanley, tell these gents something about me.”

“Can’t we go home?”

“Come on, dear,” Kyle bid Stanley, “just one thing.”

This was cruelty, Stanley felt. He had gotten off his coach wanting to tell Kyle about his family situation, and the thought of it was still burning at him. How was he expected to have fun out drinking when he had an actual life to attend? “He’s writing a thesis on William Blake,” Stanley said. He was so shocked at how hoarse it sounded.

“Oh, you’re at uni, are you?” One of the old men asked. This one was dignified, his gray hair slicked to perfection. He was wearing a three-piece suit.

“I guess,” said Kyle. “No, Stanley, tell them something fun!”

“This isn’t fun for me,” said Stanley. “Sorry.” He bent over and took the Tatler out of his bag, intending to read it.

“Don’t be like that,” one of the men said, and Stanley ignored him. He turned to the table of contents, scanning the ads. Here was an ad for pantyhose, there one for a jeweler down the Princes Arcade.

“Oh, such a bitch,” Kyle said, presumably about Stanley. “Ignore her, my dear, you were saying about me?”

“Your hair is national treasure!”

“Thank you, ducky, I know, it takes a lot of work. The texture is so fickle, I practically have to rub it with a _starter_ —”

“Another round!” said someone, and Kyle asked for an Asti.

By dinnertime of course he was ruined, two of their would-be suitors departed. “Stanley,” he said, crawling onto Stanley’s lap. “I think I’m going to be ill.”

“Yes, I gathered that.” Stanley pulled a half-eaten plate of chips toward them and said, “Don’t ruin this coat. Let’s be sick on this if we have to.”

“Is she going to be all right?” that Geoffrey fellow asked. “I could take her home.”

“You know, she has an early flight tomorrow,” said Stanley. “So I don’t endorse that. Her father would have your neck.”

“All right,” said the other one. “Point taken.” They turned to go, not without leaving their numbers for Kyle.

“I’m really going to be sick,” he said.

“Then let’s go to the toilet,” Stanley suggested.

“No, I must get out of here. Oh my god. What was I thinking?”

“I don’t know,” said Stanley, “but you can tell me in the cab.”

It was dry and dark out as they left the Duke of Buckingham; stumbling toward Soho Square, Stanley directed Kyle to a sewer grate, and held the hem of Kyle’s coat up while Kyle copiously vomited.

“I warned you,” said Stanley, “I warned you.”

“Yes, I know, you know _everything_ , you’re so smart.”

Stanley noticed that some sick had gotten on his shoe.

“Come on,” said Stanley. He helped Kyle upright. “We can get a taxi on Oxford Street. Baby steps. One foot after the other.”

“Sometimes I just wish I were dead,” Kyle moaned.

“Well, you look fabulous, so let’s not discount that.”

“Thank you.” Kyle wiped his mouth, and Stanley noticed that the vomit sort of matched the color of Kyle’s nail varnish.

They found a cab after much waiting and moaning, Kyle clinging to Stanley’s arm. After a few minutes he said, “I can’t even stand,” and crumpled over to sit on Stanley’s bag. “I hope my coat isn’t getting ruined.”

Kneeling so that his trousers were in the gutter, Stanley gathered up the hem of Kyle’s coat and tucked it where it didn’t brush the ground. “How’s that?” Rubbing his hands up, he stood. “Very well.”

Back in Islington, Kyle’s father met them at the front door. He extended a hand for Stanley to grasp, grip limp like a wilted stem. “Have you been well?” he asked.

Gerald Broflovski was a man of diminished stature, though Stanley could not quite describe why he seemed this way. He was no shorter than Stanley was, with a grim demeanor and a farcical beard. He should have been intimidating, but Stanley found him to be rather a non-entity. “I’m well,” Stanley said, setting his bag down on the floor in the foyer. “Better than you’ve been, I imagine.”

As if all of the air had gone out of him, Mr. Broflovski slouched into the front door as he shut it. “We’ve been better, it’s true.” He patted Stanley on the shoulder, barely making an impression. He said, “Happy Christmas.” He then turned to his son and, brushing some hair from Kyle’s forehead, said, “You seem unwell.”

“I’m drunk,” said Kyle. “Sorry, Daddy.”

“Wash your face before dinner.”

“If you insist.”

“Have you packed yet?”

Kyle said nothing.

“Please don’t bring that ridiculous coat.”

“Well!” Kyle cried. He grabbed it by its excess and swept it around. “I suppose not!” He pushed past his father, shouting, “Come along, Stanley!”

“Thank you for having me,” Stanley said, picking up his bag again.

“Never mind that,” said Mr. Broflovski. “It will be brought up for you.”

Mrs. Broflovski had prepared dinner, a stew of leftover things the family would not leave in the refrigerator while they were away for a fortnight. It was a meat meal, with hunks of lamb, beef, and chicken, with disintegrating leftover potatoes and bullet-hard peas. Kyle’s mother had dismissed the staff and she ladled it over white rice herself. She cut up stale challah from Friday night (it had come directly from an East End bakery and still tasted of salt and egg) and sat down with a glass of wine. “Well,” she said, glancing over at Kyle. “Bubbe, you look _horrible_.”

“I’m drunk.” Kyle pushed his bowl of stew away. “Please serve me some wine.”

She looked to Kyle’s father for advice, but Gerald merely shrugged, already buttering a piece of bread with oily margarine. “All right, well, enjoy.” Kyle proffered his glass and she filled it.

They said blessings over the wine and bread, to which Stanley nodded along. He was hungry and cold, forever uncomfortable around these people. He did not know what to say, about his afternoon out with Kyle or about the situation with Ike. It was surely rude not to mention it, but what did one say? Was it to be treated like a death; should he offer his condolences? Feeling uneasy, he sipped his wine slowly and said, after a few minutes of steady eating, “Well, thank you for inviting me to stay. I’m very grateful.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Sheila. “We won’t be here. _Someone_ needs to get the mail. Plus, you know, if Ike comes back.” She became quiet, which was unusual for her. She sighed into her wineglass. “Well, if he does, please call right away. Maybe it’s optimistic to think he _would_ , you know, but he’s left so many of his things here. Plus he’s not a bad student, you know, it just boggles me to think he’d just leave school and everything. He wants to be a solicitor, you know. He’s always been very ambitious.”

“He’s not ambitious,” said Kyle. “He’s just disdainful. He hates me, that’s why he left.”

“Kyle, you know that’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, you mark my words. If he ever comes back, you ask him.”

“He’ll come back,” said Stanley, “I’m sure of it. Won’t he?”

“Surely,” said Kyle’s father. “He’s testing us, that boy. He thinks he’s teaching us a lesson.”

“A lesson about what, Daddy?”

“I’m sure he doesn’t know.”

“Little kid stuff,” said Sheila. “The kids today, they’re all going crazy. My sister says they’re all reading that beatnik poetry and that stuff rots your mind.”

“How would she know?” Kyle asked.

“She has a son,” said Kyle’s father.

“Yes?” Kyle said. “What would _he_ know about it? About anything?”

“Kyle, that’s your cousin. Be kind.”

“Kind about what? Surely you understand he’s completely naff.”

“A what?” asked Gerald.

“Never mind.” Kyle crossed his arms and sat back, pouting. “I feel ill. May I be excused?”

“No,” said Sheila. “Bubbe, eat something. You’ll feel better.”

Kyle sat back in his chair, looking down at his food with disdain. Slowly, with everyone’s eyes on his, he softened, until he reached for a piece of bread.

“Well,” said Sheila, refilling her wine glass. “What else is new? How are you, Stan?” She scooped more stew onto her plate. “What’s the plan?”

“How do you mean?” Stanley asked.

“Well, what are you up to?”

“He’s writing a thesis, Mom. Like me.”

“Well, what are you writing it _on_?” she asked Stanley.

“Um.” Stanley sat up straighter. “Evelyn Waugh.”

“Oh.” She seemed to perk up around this information. “ _Brideshead_ , right?”

“Right.”

“I never read it.”

“Oh, it’s very good,” said Stanley. “You must read it.”

“What’s it about?”

“You know, it’s really about — a great many things.”

She continued to gape at him. “Such as—?”

“Well, you know.” Stanley desperately wished he had refilled his wineglass before this conversation had gotten underway. “Two boys at Oxford, and the protagonist, Charles, he sort of falls in love with his friend, in a sense, or perhaps the friend’s family. He becomes engaged to his friend’s sister and she simply can’t marry him, because she is a Catholic. And it’s framed around the Second World War.”

“Oh,” said Sheila. “So it’s about the war?”

“The war doesn’t much factor back into it. But the framing device is that he’s stationed at their house during the war, and the house is called ‘Brideshead Castle,’ so in effect the war is just a prompt for him to sort of … revisit things.”

“The house?”

“Well, no, really his entanglement with the family.”

“So it’s about — what? I’m sorry, I’m not following.”

“I don’t know, a great many things,” Stanley repeated. “The aristocracy, I suppose. He’s a somewhat artistic middle-class person and he falls in with these aristocrats, and it sort of prompts you to consider if he is in love with these people, this girl, because of their status, or if he glorifies the status because of the girl. Well, the people. Her brother. His friend. At Oxford.” Inwardly cringing, Stanley concluded, “And that’s sort of what it’s about, you know.”

“And what is your paper about?” Kyle’s father asked.

“Oh, Daddy, come off it, you don’t need to give him the third degree about the whole thing.”

“If this is his work he should figure out how to articulate it,” said Sheila.

“We are on _holiday_ ,” said Kyle. His skin was already red from scrubbing off the makeup, and as he become exasperated he turned the color of his nail varnish, a blanched-salmon shade.

“It’s all right, darling. I really don’t mind describing it.”

“Look, if I have to spend all day tomorrow on an airplane and all of the next two weeks stuffed in that split-level in horrifying _Connecticut_ ” — Kyle pronounced it exactingly, _Kinnect-uh-cut_ — “then why don’t you let us act for an evening as if we might take actual _joy_ in our lives?”

“Whoever said life was joyous, Kyle?” his mother asked. “What did you do to earn a holiday?”

“I did _extremely_ well in my art history course!”

“Yes, we’re pleased about that,” said Sheila. “What else?”

“I don’t know!” said Kyle. “Please, I feel _so sick_ , please let me go to bed.”

“Well, all right,” said Kyle’s father. “You may be excused.”

“Thank you.” Kyle said. He finished the end of his glass of wine. “Stanley, let’s go.”

Standing, Stanley folded his napkin back onto the table, laying it beside his plate. “Thank you for dinner."

“If he comes back,” said Sheila, “the number at my sister’s is next to the fridge. Call us immediately! And don’t let him leave.”

“Of course not,” said Stanley.

“Stanley!” Kyle grabbed Stanley’s arm. “Help me fold my trousers. Come on.”

 

* * *

 

Before Stanley could fold any trousers Kyle insisted on assistance with the removal of the pair he was currently wearing. Kyle had evidently shaved his legs; they were both smooth and nicked with garish razor cuts. “I thought Eric might like it,” he said, brushing his ankle against Stanley’s face. “Oh well, I suppose. Like all of my efforts it’s merely a lost cause.” He lay back and sighed, draping a forearm over his brow.

“Did you want to pack these?” Stanley held aloft the trousers he’d just removed from Kyle’s body.

“Oh, you know what I like to wear. The climate there’s roughly on par with this one at the new year, so I don’t need anything special. Some slacks, some sweaters, socks and shoes. Nothing fancy or interesting. A suit coat, maybe. In case we go into the city. That’s all, really.”

“No rouge?”

“There’s no one to impress there,” said Kyle. “So, no.”

Stanley opened the closet and dragged out Kyle’s trunk, the one Stanley had most recently watched Kyle pack before he’d gone down from Oxford for the holiday. “Do you intend to help me with this or are you simply going to lie there?”

“I know you’ll do it for me because you’re such a dear,” said Kyle. In his pants and nothing else, all the makeup scrubbed away and his hair wrecked, he seemed fragile in a different way. Without the billowing fur coat Kyle was pinkish, his skin blotchy, his nipples pointed in two small peaks. There was no muscle definition, but a general dearth of fat. The exception to this was Kyle’s stomach, which was taut when he laid down and stretched, as he was doing now. Yet Stanley could picture the softness that gathered there when Kyle sat up, small rolls he fretted over occasionally when he wanted attention. Then of course there was his arse, though it was hidden in his briefs now.

As a body it was unremarkable, but it meant everything to Stanley. He thought of it constantly, even and perhaps especially in his meetings with Token. There Kyle’s body was a point of desperate contrast; Token’s corporal state was many things to Stanley, but it was not vulnerable, nor did it haunt Stanley’s consciousness. Token’s body was more analogous to his own, in its degree of athleticism (a passive sort of trimness, neither cultivated nor slack) and its solidity. Token’s body was all brown, the tone consistent all over. Stanley’s was consistent too, like something that had come out of a machine, produced for the least amount of controversy, meant not to be remarked upon. Then there was Kyle’s body, which Stanley could not forget about. He stood there in the room staring, drinking it in like the face of a lost relative he’d not seen for years. Stanley had one of those, his uncle, and yet it was unimaginable that such a reunion would command his focus the same way Kyle’s unexpected nakedness did.

“All right, let’s see here.” Stanley unlatched the trunk. “This shouldn’t take long.” He would start with Kyle’s pants. Perhaps, he figured, it might lead to an erection, and that might lead to sex. But as Stanley folded Kyle’s briefs into neat, tightly rolled cigarillos, he realized that Kyle had passed out, sprawled atop his quilt and looking a bit green still. Besides, by the time he had finished with the packing, Stanley’s arousal had waned; this corresponded with his closer inspection of Kyle’s body. Here were fingerprint-seeming marks on Kyle’s collarbone and bruises on the insides of his shorn thighs. (Kyle typically had a wealth of hair there; it must have taken forever, Stanley assumed, to be rid of it all.) These were greenish yellow blotches, their edges turning to red-purple where blood vessels had burst. They were marks consistent, Stanley knew from his own experience, with the manner in which Eric Cartman fucked: without a starter, he had gripped Stanley’s thighs for dear life, his whole body crushing into Stanley back while he used his grip in Stanley’s thighs for anchorage. If Kyle hadn’t been sleeping Stanley would have inspected further, but in this case it was useless. He went off to brush his teeth.

When he returned to the bedroom, having put on his cotton pajamas, Stanley climbed into bed with Kyle. It was a challenge, to be sure, with Kyle splayed across the bed in his exhaustion. Gently Stanley pushed him aside, curling around Kyle until they were clutched together fast. Though Kyle was asleep Stanley kissed his jaw and said good night. "Bon voyage, darling," he whispered. "I'll miss you."

 

* * *

 

Conducting a clandestine affair at Oxford was trying in that the place often felt very quartered and small, yet for all its grief Stanley knew he would at least see Token at tutorials. There they could pass each other notes before class about future meetings, or hang behind after the others had filtered out, disappearing behind hedges to go wandering together into the gray mist of the afternoon. Token was a country gentleman, after all, and he tramped through mud with confidence. Stanley had recollections of idyll hunting trips with his uncle, and while the trips themselves were a distant memory Stanley's wistfulness for England's outdoors returned slowly in Token's company. He felt no apprehension at sauntering into New College and rapping on Token's door. Were Stanley caught pursuing this queer liaison he might end up expelled or, worse, arrested. If nothing else he might be asked not to return to New College, his access to Token somewhat limited. Now, in London over the post-Christmas holiday, he was positively nervous, fixated on getting in touch with Token. He wasted one day dwelling on it, sequestering himself in Kyle's house as he considered his options. The Broflovskis had left in the morning with their baggage; Kyle left Stanley with a kiss on the cheek. "Be good, Stanley," he'd said, as if he knew Stanley intended not to be.

It was a lonely night for Stanley, with the books in Kyle's parents' library and just one glass of their whisky for company. He drank it slowly throughout the afternoon, his eyes glazing over _Exodus_ , which should have been of interest to Stanley. Yet he found it difficult to maintain focus. By the time it was dark out in the late afternoon he called Wendy up in Gloucestershire. "Are you coming to town?" he asked. "I'm here for a bit. A few weeks."

"I won't be there until the new year," she said. "It'll be 1967, Stanley. What exciting things do you think we'll see this next year?"

"Well, I don't know," said Stanley. "But you sound a bit drunk."

"I am a bit drunk. It's my parents — my grandmother — the neighbors — dreadful parlor games. _Actual_ charades."

"Do you mean the game?"

"I mean the idea that this is all just a pale imitation of actual life," she said. "But we played a few rounds of the game, too."

"I didn't go out at all today. Kyle dragged me out yesterday afternoon and it was brutal. To the Bucky. It was far too much, so I sequestered myself all day. And now I'm lonely."

"Poor Stanley! I know the feeling. Can you imagine, I've been sequestered for a week now! But I'll be back in town soon enough. Let's go shopping, shall we? Shall we make plans?"

"I would love to." They agreed to meet on Monday on the steps of the National Gallery at 10 o’clock.

"Happy Christmas," she said to him in closing.

"Thank you, dear. It wasn't happy, but it's over." Stanley penciled their date into his agenda and replaced the Uris on the shelf. It had been a mistake. He took the newspaper to Kyle's bed with him and lay in in it, now empty and cold without him. Kyle had left his scent behind, likely inadvertent: women's perfume; the faint trace of alcohol he sweated out after drinking; other cosmetic chemicals, things Stanley could never make out. The smell would linger for a day or so and fade away, or perhaps the maid would come to wash the sheets and obliterate the presence of Kyle in this bed, leaving Stanley well and truly alone.

In the morning Stanley got up and did the unthinkable: he went to the Post Office and sent Token a telegram. It was painfully old-fashioned, a very Butters type of thing, really. But it seemed the most elegant solution, considering he did not know Token's telephone number, or even if Token was in town. It was a simple missive:

_Viscount. Am in Ldn 3 wks. Staying at KB's. Call: CAN849. -SM_

"This going to a real viscount?" the clerk joked.

"That's none of your concern," Stanley hissed. Then he felt bad, and added, "No, sorry. Of course not."

Of course after this the trouble became waiting for the call to come through. On the walk back to Kyle's Stanley went into the grocery and bought some dried currants and figs, a tin of Irish oatmeal, and a liter of whole milk. Over the stove on one of Sheila Broflovski's cast-iron skillets Stanley heated the milk, stirring in the oatmeal by the forkful, then adding the dried fruit. As it simmered and thickened, Stanley disappeared into the liquor cabinet and helped himself to a bottle of mid-range brandy, a spoon of which he added to the concoction on the range. Then for good measure he added a second. His mother, who had made elaborate puddings for all of Stanley's father's colleagues recently, had been saying over their Christmas dinner that the potency of alcohol cooked off after a time. Unfortunately for Stanley the oatmeal began to burn before this appeared to have been accomplished; the final result was both bitter and over-sweet, a soggy mess that was no good. Still, with nothing else in the house Stanley sat alone at the dining room table eating his day's meal straight from the skillet. Disliking it, but not wishing to subject himself to another cooking experience in the near future, Stanley simply put the leftovers in the refrigerator in the skillet, for tomorrow' breakfast or for dinner, if he ate dinner, which perhaps he would not. With neither his mother nor the Magdalen staff to cook for him, Stanley was not sure what else to do about it. Go with a girl and marry her, probably. Sighing as he slammed the refrigerator door shut, Stanley resigned himself to a life of hunger. He did drink a glass of the brandy, though.

Much to Stanley's surprise, Token rang the next morning. "I hope I didn't wake you," he said, sounding as if he'd been at it for hours already. Stanley had passed out drunkenly on the living room sofa, the pages of his book wrinkled with sauternes. It was already late, perhaps 11. The sour taste of dryness was in Stanley's mouth. 

Despite the fact that Token could not see him, Stanley felt embarrassed. "Of course not. I've been up for hours now."

"Hm. I’ll take your word for it. You’re at Kyle’s, are you?”

“Yes. I’m keeping an eye on the house while they’re in the States visiting Mrs. Broflovski’s relations.”

“Oh? And did they say you might have guests?”

“They said nothing about it at all, actually.”

“Well.” Token paused for a moment. “Should we meet for a drink this evening? I have dinner with Clyde at the club at half-six, but I should be free of him by nine, or half-past. Shall we meet then?"

With the mention of Clyde jealousy sprang up in Stanley's mind, and he sat up on the sofa, rubbing his eyes with the telephone tucked under his chin. "I could do," he said. "What's old Clyde up to?"

"Nothing, I'm sure. His parents have a flat in town."

"Well, whose don't?" said Stanley, whose parents did not.

"Where will we meet?" Token paused. In a low voice, he said, "I've missed you."

Stanley clutched his legs to his chest, the receiver probably leaving a mark on his chin. "Yes," he said. "Me too. Have you been to the Duke of Buckingham?"

"No," said Token, "how is it?"

"Dreadful. But perfect."

"That sounds like an oxymoron."

"It must be seen to be believed." Strictly it wasn't true, but Stanley enjoyed the hyperbole of it. "It's our type of people, you know."

"Which type, students?"

"No. Not _that_ type."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Why don't we meet at the Savoy?"

"The hotel?"

"Yes," said Token. "They make an outstanding old-fashioned."

"I don't drink those."

"It hardly matters, Stanley. The point of getting together is the company, not the drinks."

"Then we should go to the Bucky, Viscount. The company is truly exceptional, and more fitting."

"Please do not call me that," said Token. "Stanley, I mean it. I'll see you this evening, after dinner. Where is the Duke of Buckingham?"

"It's somewhat obscure. Do you have a pen and paper?" Stanley explained the directions, recounting the process for gaining admission. "If they ask you what you are doing there, you must say you are going camping."

"Well, now, what's the meaning of that?"

"It's to keep the clientele limited."

"It sounds very exclusive."

"Yes," said Stanley, "by necessity. The last thing the customers want is to be carted off by Betty Bracelets, and the last thing the proprietors want is a raid. It's bad for business."

"It will be quite bad for me if I'm seen at this place."

"The beauty of the place is that anyone who sees you there won't want it known that he was there himself and most likely won't go spreading it around. Think of it as mutually assured destruction."

"I don't know that I find that thought terribly comforting," said Token. "But it will have to do for now. I'll see you tonight, I suppose, at the Duke of Buckingham."

With a sigh, Stanley relented. “Or the Savoy is fine.”

“Are you certain? I wouldn’t want to force you.”

"I'm greatly looking forward to it," said Stanley. He meant it, too.

 

* * *

 

Stanley had never been to the Savoy. Had it been two years ago it might have impressed him. With Kyle he tended to feel giddy and daring, but Token did not inspire confidence in Stanley, vis-à-vis his presentation in public. Most of London remained on holiday, and here in the lobby were all sorts: theatergoers, courtesans, mistresses, the foreign elite. American laughs filled the lobby, raucous and jarring. Why couldn’t Mrs. Broflovski’s sister come to London? Why did Kyle have to go _there_? Stanley felt overdressed in his slacks and tie, though comparatively he was shabby, his clothing second-hand, originally his father’s. Perhaps it was time for a new tie; this one had a very dated argyle pattern that made Stanley hate himself just slightly.

In the bar a man in tails was playing jazz piano; quite a crowd was gathered in the lobby, and yet in here the mood was more sedated. Hushed conversations were evident, disclosures spit over tabletops laden with crystal glassware. The room hummed with the verve of society, and Stanley knew he stood out, especially in his old tie. Women with bouffant hair hunched over their cocktails, the geometric splash of their glittering earrings swayed gently in candlelight. Token was easily spotted in his well-cut sport coat, grinning over a drink.

“What is that?” Stanley asked, as he received a chaste kiss on the cheek. He returned the gesture duly; social stuff.

“Try it.” Token lifted the glass and placed it in Stanley’s hand. “They call it a Hanky-Panky.”

“And what’s in it?” The glass was fluted and wide-mouthed like a martini, a surprisingly delicate vessel. Stanley took a sip and recoiled: gin and sweet vermouth.

“You don’t like it? You’re making that face.”

“What face?”

“That face where you don’t like something.”

“I don’t _have_ a face like that.” The bartender handed Stanley a cocktail menu, and brought a shallow dish with salted, oily cashews. “Cheers,” he said to the bartender, who nodded in regard.

“We could get a table, but I much prefer to watch them work.” Token sipped his drink; the richness of his presence was made for this place, Stanley figured. No one had ever been handsome like this. “This isn’t my favorite, either. I’ll have a Manhattan next. Please tell me if you’d like a recommendation.”

“Fancy drinks aren’t my main interest.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“Well, I’m predominantly interested in simple things, straight up. A nice glass of Scotch whisky, you know, or a good champagne. Of course, the better the spirit, the less accessible. So I find myself drinking sweet wines with Kyle — sherry, for example.”

“Yes, Kyle.” Token pursed his lips. “How is Kyle?”

“Fine, I suppose. He didn’t want to go abroad.”

“Oh? Why not? I’ve never been, have you?”

“I’ve never been out of Britain. My father hates to travel.”

“Well, we must amend that sometime. It’s no use becoming a worldly young man with an Oxford education and missing the chance to actually _see_ the world.”

"I don't think my father quite sees it that way," said Stanley. "He is far too in love with Oxfordshire to leave it. He'd rather stay there his whole life and study the material substance of the place than go anywhere else, even to London for a day. Did you know I hadn't _really_ been to London until I was 19?"

"Of course I didn't know that," said Token, "but I'm truly sorry. It's a wonderful town."

"Yes. It is. Well, I know that now, having been here. After our first year, Kyle let me stay on with his family for the summer. I'll never forget the kindness. It was ... my first time, I suppose."

"You were a virgin," Token marveled.

"Well, to the city." Stanley reached for his glass.

Token finished the last bit of his cocktail and set the glass aside. "You spend an awful lot of time with Kyle," he said.

"Well, he is my best friend."

"Craig is mine, I suppose. Or, perhaps not."

"Clyde?"

"No, I don't mean Clyde, though I am fond of him, he's such a dear. No, I mean — it seems silly to have a best friend as an adult, wouldn't you say? Why single out one man? It's fairly schoolboyish."

"How is Craig?" Stanley asked, though he didn't much care. He meant only to be polite. 

“He’s been up at Nommel over Christmas,” said Token. Stanley saw it spelt out every time it was pronounced, perhaps because, or maybe in spite of, the fact that it was pronounced _nome_ , “Like the administrative districts of ancient Egypt,” as Craig had described on the first (and last non-acrimonious) interaction two and a half years ago. Craig had been a lowly courtesy marquess then, but he had seen fit to inform Stanley that he would one day in the future become the Duke of Nommel in his own right. And, now he was. "I haven't seen him, but he'll be in town shortly."

“Why is he coming here, then?”

“He’s very ambitious, Craig.” Token rolled his eyes, as if even to another member of the aristocracy Craig’s ambition was ludicrous. “He’s in a rush to do everything. Besides, he’ll have to take Annie out over New Years, you know. Be seen and all that.”

"Well, what does it matter if he's seen? Does he really want to marry her? Who wants to get married at 21 anyway? It seems so rushed."

"It's hardly rushed. Now that he's inherited his title he feels such pressure to get on with it. To be honest, Stanley, I can't say I blame him." Token sighed, slumping on his bar stool. "Did you want another drink?"

"Certainly." Stanley waved over the bartender and ordered his second cocktail, a Corpse Reviver No. 2. Token ordered his Manhattan, and when it came he gazed into it quietly for a time. Stanley might have spoken out, but the truth was, he didn’t have much to say. Should he tell Token about Christmas with his family? Would Token like to hear about his parents’ disdain? Surely not; either Token agreed with them, or he was in a similar predicament. Should Stanley discuss Kyle’s family, their grief over their missing son? That felt like a violation of privacy. Though he was aware that to a certain extent he was being, well, _used_ , Stanley felt his occupation of Kyle’s family’s home was a sort of honor. How could he relay that to Token? In this place, or all places — not their usual Oxford haunts, one of their chilly bedsits, but under a score of tinkering jazz piano? Stanley sipped his drink in quiet and watched Token fish for bar nuts.

Suddenly, then, after swallowing back a cashew, Token cleared his throat and asked, “Have you ever been with a woman, Stanley?”

Taken aback, Stanley let his answer form as he sipped his drink. Then he raised his shoulders, slowly crooked his fingers, and said, “ _No_.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Isn’t it obvious?” He cocked a brow.

“No,” said Token, “it is _not_ obvious. Most men, regardless of preference, eventually become involved in some capacity with a woman.”

“Well, not me,” Stanley scoffed, “I’m clean.” Then jealousy began to curdle around the particulars of their evening, and Stanley asked, “Have _you_?” He took a sip of his drink.

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

“Oh, come on! That’s utter rubbish.”

Fingers in the bowl of nuts Token turned to Stanley, evincing a sad smile: “Have _you_ been with Kyle?”

Emptying his drink, Stanley wiped his lips inelegantly. “I have done.” His fingers were shaking.

“What is that like?”

Now Stanley began to glare daggers at the bartender, wishing for another drink. “Not dissimilar from whatever you’re used to, I’m sure.”

“What is it that you assume I’m used to?”

“I don’t know, viscount, you said you don’t kiss and tell.”

“Would you like me to do so?”

“Do what you wish,” said Stanley. “Curiosity killed the queen.” He said this in a high voice, a sort of camp lilt to it.

“I hate it when you take that tone.” Token was fiddling with his glass, tapping it against the coaster. “But satisfaction brought it back.”

Stanley put a weak hand to his chest, a slight bent to the wrist. “My dear, this tone took _me_.”

Pulling Stanley’s hand from his chest, Token scowled and said, “Oh, don’t. That’s not you.”

“What’s not?” Again with wrists bent back, Stanley put his palms up.

“This whole act, that’s not you. And we’re in public!”

“Well, god forbid someone see you suffering the wilting presence of some middle-class queer,” Stanley hissed. “ _You_ invited me here, remember? Mutually assured destruction?”

“I remember,” said Token. “Look, it’s a natural reaction. Two men in public having an intimate conversation is tolerated by almost everyone. But if you want to truly be yourself you must forgo the trappings of the lifestyle and just relax. It’s as if you think I’m completely ignorant to everything. I’ve been to enough drag shows to know it’s not my scene. And, I suspect it’s not yours either. Not _really_.”

“I’m not hiding,” said Stanley. “I _like_ being this way. I like the Duke of Buckingham. The people are horrid and the food is congealed, and the drinks are overpriced, but I don't enjoy hiding in plain sight. I don't want to hide at all."

"What I am saying is that perhaps you don't fit in with that crowd."

"That _is_ my crowd."

"I don't know. Is it really? These voices and gestures and things, they're like an affectation you put on."

"What isn't an affectation?"

"Well — like Kyle, I suppose, for example. He does not appear to be _acting_ how he is. He simply is that way."

"Of course he is acting," said Stanley. "He is trying to project a very particular image. Token, everything is affectation. The world is just a stage — is anyone in the group doing Shakespeare?"

"No," said Token. "Clyde is working on Marlowe."

Stanley scoffed. "I'm sure he'll have _loads_ of insight into Marlowe."

"You see, there is a good example against your affectation argument. Clyde is not putting on airs. He's just sort of how he comes across."

"Stupid."

"I mean, straightforward. Almost without complication."

"I don't know Clyde very well," said Stanley, "but I'm sure he is an actor in some sense. In the sense of — the straightness he projects, for example. It must be covering up something else."

"It's not fair to drag that into it."

"Drag that _into_ it? Viscount, that's where we began it."

"Don't call me that, please."

"You are being terribly stubborn. You might refuse to go to a queer pub and you might decline to be acknowledged as an aristocrat, but those things are always going to be true of you. In my reckoning it's safer to put a bit of levity into it while embracing those things."

"Well, that's fair enough, if you must, but it's not proper to address anyone as a 'viscount,' and I don't believe that to spend time with you I should have to go to your Duke of Buckingham. It's you I want, not all of them."

"That's all right," said Stanley, attempting to be conciliatory. "You know, Kyle forced me there the other day, before he went on holiday. And it was not pleasant, because I didn't really want to be there. So, I do understand." Stanley slumped back in his seat and took a sip from his untouched water goblet. 

Token cleared his throat. "If you didn't want to go, then why did you let Kyle force you?"

Stanley had not actually thought about it. The concept of saying "no" had not exactly occurred to him. "I suppose I just wanted to go wherever he was going."

"Did you — make it with him, that night?"

"No." Stanley set his water down carefully.

"Did you want to?"

It took a moment to conjure an answer. Stanley took another sip of his water and angled the glass toward Token. “I have always been attracted to him.”

“I wouldn’t be upset if you had,” Token said, quietly. “It seems natural to want what one wants, though Kyle in particular is outside of my interests. But I don’t — I suppose the major consequence of acting upon this persuasion is that I couldn’t actually ask you not to be persuaded. If that makes sense.”

“Persuaded by what? He was drunk and acting sort of reckless. He didn’t come on to me.” Stanley dropped his voice down, and in a whisper said, “He doesn’t want me.”

“But he did at some point?”

Stanley began to feel nauseated, the leftover oatmeal slurry of his dinner unhappy with the introduction of the Corpse Reviver and this particular line of questioning. He had assumed that Token would want to fuck him after a drink at the Savoy, but the evening had defied Stanley’s expectations. “I won’t deny anything but it was never serious. Regardless of what I feel he’s not interested in someone like me. If he had a fleeting disposition toward my company it was spurred by something else — curiosity? Accessibility? Lack of other options? Surely you understand, seeing as you’re not with one of your friends.”

“My friends aren’t interested in that sort of thing.”

“If _his grace_ the Duke of Condescension isn’t interested I’ll eat my shoe. Or anything else you hand me.” Stanley slammed his hand on the bar. “Where is the bloody barkeep?”

“ _Stanley_.” Token put a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. “This is a nice place. Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what? None of this is what I came here to do.” Stanley gestured around the room with his water goblet. “I’m not having it with Kyle, all right, if that’s what you want to know. He’s getting charvered by that reprehensible … kraut queen. We’re not an item.”

“Well, what is that lout doing with Kyle, anyway? Couldn’t he have someone less auspicious, if that was what he wanted?” Token put his hand to his mouth and glanced into the empty glass in his hand. “I seem to have bitten off more than I could chew here.”

Sighing his frustration, Stanley put his elbows on the bar and said, “I don’t understand it myself.”

“Well.” Token set the glass down. He slid off of his stool, patting Stanley on the back. “No, don’t get up.” He reached into his pocket; Stanley took a gander at the area, in order to revisit the familiar site of Token’s cock snapped up inside his trousers. There it was, of course, seemingly half-hard, unnoticeable to those not looking for it. With a clink Token put a 20-pence piece on the bar; finally, someone spotted them, and came over.

“Closing out, sir?”

“I’m retiring for the night,” said Token. “Bill it to Room 408. Token Black.” He squeezed Stanley’s shoulder with a sort of genial touch, as if to imply that he owed Stanley some sort of debt. “If Mr. Marsh would like a nightcap before heading out, put that on the bill as well.”

“Very good, sir.”

“It’s _408_ ,” Token repeated, unsubtly.

“Yes, sir.” He stepped away, perhaps to make a drink for another customer.

“Well, Stanley. Thank you for your company this evening.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be heading up to bed.”

“Have a good night.”

“I will, my dear, certainly. And you too. Don’t be long.”

“Of course not. Thank you for the drinks.”

“Any time,” said Token. His voice caught on uncertainty, but he shook it off: “Any time.”

With Token departed Stanley ordered another drink, a neat whisky. When it arrived each mouthful felt heavy, tinkering jazz piano the best accompaniment. Stanley sighed into his cup and wondered what Kyle was doing. Playing mahjong with his aunt and mother, or watching a film with his cousin? No, it was earlier over there; it wasn’t yet dinnertime. Was Kyle soaking in the bath alone with a glass of wine, jetlagged and bored? Or had he crept away from his family to peruse at the local tearoom? Either way, Stanley missed him greatly. London glittered with potential at all hours, yet without Kyle to shine a light on the place, some of its allure was lost. The clientele at the American Bar glittered, too. Stanley had no use for them, though. He left 20 pence for the inefficient bartender, and went back out into the hotel past the venerable piano. At first Stanley headed for the lift, but he then thought better of it, making for the stairs.

 

* * *

 

On the second morning in January Stanley met Wendy on the steps of the National Gallery at 10. She was wearing a bold swing coat with a houndstooth knit and a black fur trim on the hem and cuffs. “You look brilliant,” he bid her, kissing her face. “It’s stunning."

“I got it for Christmas,” she said, “don’t you love it?”

“I do. Let me look at you.” He took a step back, admiring her as new year’s tourists pushed their way into the building. He hadn’t seen her for a month. “It’s really a work of art.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “Don’t say that in the presence of the old masters.”

“There are no old masters out _here_ , unless you count Nelson. Shall we take a gander?”

“That’s the idea,” she said. “Yes, let’s.” She extended a hand toward him and he gave her an arm to grasp, escorting her up the steps. She wore yellow thigh-high boots with thick black soles and a purple knit beret.

“This is quite a look,” he said, fondly. “Quite a look.”

“I am obsessed with this coat. I’ve never owned anything so beautiful.”

“You should be, it’s perfect. It’s perfectly you. Where did it come from?”

“Oh, Mummy won’t share her dirty secrets. Probably doesn’t want me buying anything new. But I have some Christmas money left over, from the rest of the family. Shall we go to Selfridges after this? I’d like to look at gloves.”

“Of course, absolutely. We must.” Stanley steered her toward the Turners and the Constables, and they sat on a bench and gaped at the _Cenotaph to the Memory of Joshua Reynolds_ until Wendy rolled her eyes.

“I can’t believe you like this Romantic stuff.”

“Well, I don’t, really.”

“Oh, what, is it Kyle’s favorite, or something?” When Stanley went pink she said, “Well, yes, of course, it would be — such perfectly foggy idealism. You know, the pre-Raphaelites couldn’t _stand_ Reynolds; they called him ‘Sir Sloshua.’ They found him so academic.”

“I don’t really care for the pre-Raphaelites.” This was not strictly true; Stanley found, in the farthest recesses of his consciousness, that something about those frizzy-haired redheaded Amazons was androgynous to his preference. He chose to bury this as deeply as possible. Mostly it was that he did not _want_ to be someone who loved pre-Raphaelite art, and he preferred to cling to that idea tightly as he studied the young buck in the foreground of Reynolds’ tomb. He still didn’t understand Waugh’s attraction to the topic. “There’s nothing wrong with using art as a portal to understanding other people.”

“Yes, but you’re not using this to understand Constable, or even Joshua Reynolds. You’re just fixating on this like it’s an echo of Kyle.”

“He actually prefers William Blake.”

“Whatever,” she said, “it’s not my concern. Let’s go shopping.” They made a pit stop at Asnières on the way out. “I’m dying for a trip to Paris,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on the bottom of one young bather.

“Please don’t die on me. You’ll make it there.”

“Wouldn’t you just love to come upon this scene?”

“Schoolboys? Not exactly, no. No thank you.”

“You were a schoolboy once,” she said. “Wouldn’t you have just died?”

“I would have died of shame, I think. Are you ready? Shall we go?”

“Oh, I suppose.” She buttoned up the front of her coat. “Aren’t you no fun?”

“I never claimed to be much fun,” he said, though he had her in tears of laughter when they sat down for a drink and a salt beef sandwich at the lunch counter in Selfridges: “I am just saying, all men in tight pants look a bit queer, but it’s like they don’t even care. Everyone’s hair is getting so bushy. Fashion is headed for a timely death if we keep going down this road. Everyone looks like a sad clown.”

“I don’t!” she protested, smearing mustard on her sandwich.

“No, you don’t, you can reign it in, thank god. But half the chaps in this sandwich shop would fit right in at the Duke of Buckingham. It’s atrocious.”

She giggled at his impertinence, drinking a fancy cherry soda with a fount of whipped cream floating on its surface. From that rose a striped paper straw, on which her coral lipstick left a shiny smudge. “You’re so _irreverent_ ,” she said. “Such an iconoclast, Stanley.”

“It isn’t my fault everyone looks so _stupid_.”

“And people look so smart in Oxford?”

“No, everyone there is so bloody _boring_.” He sighed. “Except for the handful of friends I’ve acquired, all of whom came from elsewhere.” The greasy sandwich soaking the paper plate in front of him was the first real food he had enjoyed in some time, since his mother’s Christmas dinner. It was served with a small crock of baked beans and an iceberg salad. This was someone’s idea of American food, Kyle had told him once. “Wendy,” he said, in all seriousness, “if I stay there after graduation I _will_ actually die.”

“Oh, you’ll find a way out,” she said. “Are you going down this year?”

“I don’t know,” said Stanley. “I’d like to stay on, and maybe do an M. Phil.”

“Oh, and then — what, enter the academy?”

“No. I want to write.”

“Oh! Well, what are you going to write?” With a plastic fork she took a heaping bite of beans.

“I don’t know yet! That is precisely why I should stay in school. My father would pay for it. I mean, for me to live in a little flat of my own. Provided I were doing something reasonable. I don’t think he wants me in the house. I think the sight of me upsets him.”

“It should,” she said. “Because he is at the end of his life, and yours is just beginning.”

“I think it is more because he is disgusted by my proclivities. He keeps insisting I ‘try.’ ” Stanley pushed the dish of beans toward Wendy. He leaned into her. “Try to _what_ , though?”

Ignoring the beans, she put her hand on his. “We could try it,” she said.

“They would love that,” he said, pain in his voice. “I mean, my parents. They would _love_ it.”

“I mean, you’d have to pull out. I won’t have any more surgical consequences. It’s been a while, so maybe I’m out of practice. And it couldn’t _go_ anywhere, dear, I’m sorry. If it did work. I couldn’t be seen out with you, or I wouldn’t get any suitors.”

“It’s like a bloody Austen novel, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, sort of. I’m going to the opera tomorrow night with this one chap — the son of some baron, I think. They keep setting me up with people. All these gentlemen are so vile. You wouldn't be vile, Stanley, would you?"

He pulled his hand away, planting it in a fist on his thigh. "I'm not sure I'd be capable of doing it," he said. "I mean, at all. It's nothing against you, dear, but I am not sure I would be capable of willing myself to perform adequately. I fear you would only be disappointed."

"Well, it's quite all right," she said. "My satisfaction, or lack thereof, wouldn't be the point."

"And that wouldn't be fair, then, would it?"

"Oh." She sighed, taking another forkful of beans. "Fair or not, it's my lot. To be unsatisfied, you know.”

“I think there is a disconnect here. It’s not the right thing to do.”

“I understand, then. … Honestly, I’m a bit relieved.”

“Well,” he said, “we avoided that potential awkwardness, then.”

They spent the rest of the day in Selfridges, Wendy inspecting the stiff leather gloves and supple leather shoes, tip-toeing around the department in a pair of black-patent wide-toed Roger Vivier pumps with a metallic-trim buckle. “Do you like these, Stanley? Should I buy them?”

“Well.” He glanced at her, coat in a pile on a chair, her legs lean with the lift of a sturdy heel. “They are very au courant. They’ll look quite glamorous with the coat.”

“But they aren’t quite pedestrian enough for every day, are they? Must I reserve them for special occasions?”

“I think they would look good with everything, which would make them a good investment if you hadn’t already a generous collection of shoes.”

“But I very much like shoes,” she said. “And I should but some hosiery to go with them. Yes, I think I shall purchase these.”

Stanley held her coat up and open as she slipped into it. She charged the Roger Viviers to her father, and carried them with her to intimate apparel.

“I don’t feel comfortable in this department,” Stanley said. “I’ll go browse the menswear.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. “There’s nothing scandalous about it, but all right.”

In suiting Stanley appraised the fabric of the dress shirts, the patterns and qualities, the weight and the texture. If Stanley wanted a nice suit would he go to Craig for advice? He chuckled to himself at the thought; it was highly unlikely. With no need for luxury items Stanley drifted into shoes, sniffing the leather soles of a mustard-colored pair of pointed-toe ankle boots. Too mod for his taste, Stanley put them down and began to leave. His plimsolls moaned against the floor, the polish worn away after a season of holiday shoppers.

A shop clerk with a high-buttoned collar stopped Stanley and said, “My dear, may I help you?” he was a slim man, a pink bowtie at his throat, slim fingers curled under his chin. “Were you interested in trying on those boots?”

“Well, I was browsing,” said Stanley. “Just waiting for my friend. She’s in intimate apparel.”

“Oh.” His fingers went to his hips, which he cocked out brusquely. “Will she be a while, dear? It’s a slow day. Everyone’s still drifting back into town. What’s your size?” His eyes went wide as he said it, an unmistakable nod toward Stanley’s belt.

Though he considered himself a nervous person, Stanley found the clerk harmless; perhaps intriguing. He crossed his arms, stiffened to raise his chest, cleared his throat. “Oh, I should think an 11.” He waited a moment. “Or so.”

“Well, my dear, take a sit.” The clerk patted the seat of a wooden stool, a hollow knocking accompanying the gesture. “I shall measure you.”

So here Stanley found himself, in the men’s show department of Selfridges on the day after New Year’s Day, an ash-blond man with a bit of pomade swirled into his hair kneeling with Stanley’s naked foot in his hands. “An 11 indeed,” he said, softly. “That’s respectable.”

“It’s the only respectable thing about me.”

“Hmm.” The clerk stood, the measuring device in his hands. “I’m certain that isn’t true.”

Stanley stood in his bare feet, socks falling from his lap. He had wanted to do this suavely, and there they went, falling to the floor without grace — but Stanley told himself the man was only a salesman in the Selfridges men’s shoe department, so his opinion did not matter, and if it did, well — didn’t he see socks on the floor all of the time? “What’s your opinion on camping?”

The clerk giggled, covering his mouth. He raised an eyebrow. “That’s bold,” he said.

“ _You’re_ bold,” said Stanley. “Don’t be bold with me.”

As if swooning, the clerk wilted slightly and brushed some hair from his forehead, the strand that wasn’t cemented in flawless place. “I’ve a break at 1500,” he said, voice tight. “There’s a lovely cottage at Marble Arch. Have you been?”

“No,” said Stanley. “I’m visiting. Do you recommend it?”

“Oh, so you’ve a place to stay? You could … come over for dinner. It gives me _such_ a sense of ful _fill_ ment to entertain visitors.” At “fill” he took another gander at Stanley’s dick.

There was no one else in the department, improbably, though Stanley imagined it might have been because the businessmen were all back to work following the holiday. He wanted to consider this offer, to take the salesman up on it, to say “yes” without heed and fuck his tight, prim arse in a filthy john. Token wouldn’t do it and Stanley was hard up for it, wishing just to take a man from behind, leaving fingerprints and bruises and purplish remainders on his flanks, only to disappear and let the memory of their encounter fade with the markings it had made on that man’s body, until one morning he woke up wishing to touch himself idly to the recollection of it, finding that he remembered only the place and not the look of Stanley’s face, the color of his eyes, the tenor of his voice. It felt dangerous and arousing and promising, the clarion call of the city in full-force.

“Stanley?” It was Wendy, her Viviers in a shopping bag. “Are you here? The clerk said you went this way — yes, there you are." She sat on a stool across from him, crossing her boots at the ankles. "Are you trying on shoes?"

"Just for fun," said Stanley, "as I was waiting."

"Oh, I wasn't that long!"

At this the salesman lifted one eyebrow, a look of narrowly contained resentment on his face. He put his hands to his hips and slouched, presumably realizing the promise of this encounter had evaporated.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?" Wendy asked.

"Hardly," said Stanley. His face was hot. "Perhaps another day. For the shoes, I mean."

"Of course, sir." He snapped up the shoebox, sliding one of Stanley's socks back toward its owner, across the carpet. "Another time."

Having a coffee across the street following the encounter, Wendy tucked her elbows onto the table and leaned in to ask, "What was that?"

"It wasn't anything," said Stanley, "as you might have noticed."

"Did I ruin something for you? Poor Stanley." She grabbed his forearm and smiled weakly. Some of her lipstick had come off over the course of the day and she hadn't reapplied it. "He was attractive. I approve."

"No, please don't worry. I wouldn’t have done it anyway."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," said Stanley. "I didn't want to. I didn't feel it would be appropriate."

"Well, whenever is that sort of thing appropriate?" she asked.

He was scanning the menu, looking for something to drink. They had only coffees and teas and soft drinks; greasy chips and bacon butty rolls; cubed ham and pea salad with mayo on toast. This seemed dreadful and Stanley closed his menu, settling on a water. "I'm not sure it would be fair to Token."

"Oh, the mysterious Token," she said, her clipped tone mocking him. "Do you think he would have turned that man down and cited unfairness to you?"

"No," said Stanley, "because he'd never end up maneuvering himself into that situation. I am not sure he'd be present enough to do so. It's tricky."

"In what sense?"

"In every possible sense."

"I shall take your word for it, seeing as I have never met him."

"I'm sure there's some club you might both belong to."

"Oh? Well, Daddy and Mummy are at the Lansdowne — what about Token?"

"Well — White's, I believe."

"Dreadful!" she exclaimed, hands to her mouth. "Fat old Tory cows chewing cud. Dreadful!"

"Token is not a fat cow. He is actually rather good-looking."

"Well, since you won't introduce me to him I suppose I'll have to take your word for it."

"I could do," Stanley said. "Introduce you, I mean. Next term."

"I'd enjoy that," she agreed. "I'd enjoy it very much."

 

* * *

 

Kyle came back more miserable than he had left, a permanent scowl drawn on his features. He painted over it with pink lipstick immediately. He barked at Stanley, “Put on something respectable and take me out of here. I won’t be in this house with them for another moment. Come on, we’re going.”

“Don’t you want to tell me about your trip?” Stanley asked. “Or tell me at least where we are going?”

“We are going out; that is where we are going. I am not content to sit on my arse for the rest of my holiday. I had to share a room with my horrid cousin, who snores like a wild animal. I had to sit in their house all day, listening to them discuss it over and over again: where did he go? Why did he leave? When might he come back?”

“I don’t know, darling.” Stanley put a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry.”

He didn’t bother responding to this. “And the men! We went into the city and ate delicatessen and fish eggs and cold salads made with mayonnaise and my mother wouldn’t let me go to the opera, or off on my own, or anywhere fantabulous, but she made me go to the Frick Collection and see all the dreary bronzes and old masters. I just wanted to run away but I only had five dollars. Where could I possibly have gone?”

“Pardon,” said Stanley. “ _What_ about men?”

“They were everywhere!” Kyle put his hands over his face and moaned. “Every street corner, every taxi rank, every fucking gallery in the Frick! These starchy, butch American men — it wasn’t fair! It wasn’t fair of them to make me go! I had no one to even talk to!” Now he grabbed for a tweezers and pointed it at Stanley. “I wish you had been there.”

“Why? What would I have done?”

“I just felt so alone,” said Kyle, and though he did not start to cry he collapsed onto the surface of his desk and sighed loudly, hoarsely. “Why weren’t you there?”

“Because I was here,” said Stanley. “You know, minding the fort.”

Kyle sat up and pulled a pocket mirror from his desk drawer. “And how was it? Ike didn’t come back, did he?”

“Well, no, not to my knowledge.”

“Since you were here the _entire time_ ,” said Kyle, “so you would know if he’d come back.”

“Well, yes,” Stanley lied, feeling guilty. “Where are we going out to? Aren’t you tired?”

“I am tired,” said Kyle. It was mid-afternoon. “Let’s just go down the pub.”

They went to the place nearest Kyle’s, with a homey sort of air and a green sort of carpet. “The Serious Man,” it was called. They had been there before, two summers back. The place hadn’t changed, and the same rotund bartender sold them a glass of shandy each and a plate of chips with toast and beans. Kyle ate half of the chips and then half of the beans, then he ate the second half of the beans with the toast. Stanley dipped one chip in the beans and then let Kyle have the rest. They ate silently for a while. “I shouldn’t be hungry,” said Kyle, “I ate on the aeroplane.”

“It’s fine,” said Stanley, “consider it tea. He put a surreptitious hand on Kyle’s thigh and said, “My poor dear.”

“I did buy you a souvenir.” Kyle pulled something out of his coat pocket. “Two things.” They were gleaming packages, squarish and thin: a chocolate bar that said HERSHEY’S and a packet of baseball cards. “Thank you for watching the house."

“Well, thank you for allowing me to stay.” Stanley thumbed the foil on the chocolate bar and sighed. “I don’t deserve this. And I’m sorry Ike didn’t come home.”

“Oh, of course you deserve it, it’s not as if you could have _made_ him come home. He does what he wants, my parents say. I don’t believe they’re wrong. He does what he wants and I am forced to be the good one. And anyway, don’t be impressed. A chocolate bar costs a few pence. And it’s not even good — I’ve enough change in my pocket for a real Dairy Milk.”

“And do you have a taste for one?”

Kyle sipped his shandy, leaving a big pink lip-shaped smear on the rim of the glass. “Reckon I could do.”

They walked down to the corner shop where Kyle’s family bought dry goods and Kyle bought cigarettes if he wanted them. Feeling generous, Stanley bought the chocolate and then, at the off-license, a cheap bottle of sherry. It was all he could afford, and Kyle did not complain. Though it was a chilly evening they went into the green a few blocks away and sat on a damp bench, passing the bottle between them and comparing chipped-off squares of chocolate.

“This is not good chocolate,” Stanley said of the Hershey’s, its waxy texture insipid on his tongue. It took a healthy gulp of sherry to chase that feeling from his mouth.

“Let’s open the baseball cards,” said Kyle. “Come on, give me the packet.”

“No thank you! I’d like to keep them like this, as they came.”

“Then we shan’t find out who’s inside!”

“Well, I don’t know of any baseball players,” said Stanley, “and besides, if they are kept in their wrappings then the promise of the gift remains intact. The principle of potential is still inherent—”

“That’s whimsical nonsense! Give it here.” Kyle grabbed the package and tore it open, a stack of slim cards spilling onto Kyle’s thighs.

Stanley’s heart clenched at the scene, realizing it as a moment of loss. First Kyle had brought him this beautiful gift; then Kyle had needlessly ruined it.

“Look at these _men_ ,” Kyle was saying, as he shuffled through the deck. He popped the piece of bubble gum into his mouth and it made a cracking noise when he chewed it. “And I don’t even like baseball! It’s so fucking American. Every man in America is like this, Stanley. They’re all clean and earnest in this uncomplicated way. There is no hiding, because there’s nothing to hide.”

“Surely that’s not true.”

“No, it is true,” said Kyle. “You’d know it if you went there!”

“I’ll never go there,” said Stanley. “I’ve never left England. I’ve never even been to Wales.”

“Don’t waste your time going to Wales, Stanley.”

“Jesus.” Stanley took an especially large gulp from the bottle of sherry. “You and your athletes,” he said.

“What? My dear, that is offensive.” Kyle crossed his arms. The cards were still fanned out over his thighs, the names and winking faces and straining arm muscles of men Stanley did not recognize all facing heavenward. Kyle smacked noisily at the gum in his mouth. “Especially since I do not know what you’re referring to.”

“Isn’t Eric a _rower_?”

“Oh! Well, I suppose, but — my dear, he’s hardly an _athlete_.

“What is rowing if not a sport?”

“Oh, I think _rowing_ is a sport, it’s just that Eric is hardly an athlete. He isn’t serious about it. He won’t keep training after he goes down in the summer.”

“Why not? And why is he going down in the summer?”

“Because he isn’t a scholar, either,” said Kyle. “He just wants to get into the City, and make a lot of money.”

“Well, good luck to _him_.”

“I suppose.” Kyle was silent for a moment, taking the bottle from Stanley and generously swallowed away half of it. He then wiped his lips, the lipstick smearing off in a dash across his wrist. “I hate that you always bring him up.”

“Me? _I_ always bring him up? Kyle, he is _your_ beau.”

“My _beau_? Stanley, he wouldn’t even see me on Christmas!”

“Is he required to?”

“I called him at his mother’s and he wouldn’t even wish me a happy Christmas. I said, ‘I am going away over new year’s, you won’t see me, don’t you want to say goodbye?’ And he said no, of course not, why would he? ‘You’re a Jewess, Kyle,’ he said, ‘do not call me on Christmas. Your people _murdered_ Christ.’ ”

“He says that sort of rubbish all the time, though!”

“But I was leaving and he didn’t want to see me,” said Kyle. “Not even a farewell.”

“He isn’t a nice person, though. Why are you so surprised?”

“I just thought he—”

“Don’t say it!”

“Well, at least I thought he’d want to make it or something. There I was, offering it to him. He didn’t even have to do anything! I would have gone to him. And he didn’t even want me — do you think there is someone else?”

“Kyle, I don’t know. Surely not. Who would want him?”

“Stanley, haven’t you looked at him?”

“Yes, I have _looked_ at him.”

“Well, he’s gorgeous! Who _wouldn’t_ want him?”

“I don’t want him, Kyle. He has the personality of a Banshee. Get close and he screeches at you.”

“That is just not true!”

“Darling, it is perfectly true. A man who loved you would be overjoyed to hear from you. He’d want to see you before you left. He’d make you feel worthy of his time. Eric acts as if you are this astounding inconvenience to him. He treats you more or less like a stray animal which, every so often and at his convenience, he deigns to feed scraps from the table. Any good chap would be enamored of you. He should treat you like a queen!”

Rolling his eyes, Kyle finished the end of the sherry, tossing the empty bottle into the bushes. “Well, Stanley, perhaps that is where we differ. You fail to understand that _queens have no value_. Treat me like a queen? Of course he does, stupid, it’s just that my inherent worth to him is nothing.”

“Do you even hear yourself?”

“Of course I hear myself! If you think it should be any other way you are _delusional_. All I wanted from him was a farewell buggering. Why can’t I just have that?”

“He’s hateful,” said Stanley. “And you are delusional if you think that’s all you want from him. Finding someone for the evening is the easiest thing in the world. It’s finding someone you actually _want_ that’s hard. And the worst is you wanting him to want you back.”

Stanley expected Kyle to become angry and shout at him. Instead Kyle’s voice was cold and quiet: “And what would you know about it?”

Stanley said nothing, thinking only of Token and his room at the Savoy.

“Yes,” said Kyle. “I thought so.”

 

* * *

 

At the beginning of term, all of the third-years gathered in Garrison’s study, around his large wooden table. The seats were plush, the windows shut against the wet January afternoon. It was gray outside, and dark inside. The lights were on, both the overhead and the floor lamps, and the tacky candelabras over the mantel. Stanley’s knees were shaking, beside Token at his left and Kyle at his right. The chair at _Kyle’s_ right was empty.

“Does anyone know where Eric is?” Garrison took off his spectacles at the head of the table, rubbing his eyes.

All gazes met Kyle’s. “I don’t know,” he said, casually. Stanley felt Kyle’s leg beginning to knock against his, though. Then Kyle’s hand searched for Stanley’s under the table. Stanley grasped it. “He should be here.”

“Well, is he rowing, or something?”

Kyle looked to the window. “On a day like this?” he sighed. “I don’t _know_ , I’m not his keeper.”

Clyde spoke up. “Don’t they row in the rain?”

“I don’t know, Clyde.” Kyle rolled his eyes, let go of Stanley’s hand. “I’m not his mother.”

From across the table, Craig drawled, “No. You’re his wife.”

They all began to laugh, and Kyle’s face heated up. Even Garrison, they were all laughing. All but Stanley.

“I’m not a joke!” Kyle said. “I don’t know where he is! He comes and goes as he pleases. Bugger _off_ , Craig, you’re miserable.”

Craig licked his lips, unbuttoning the jacket of his suit. His eyes narrowed. “Bugger off, _your grace_ ,” he corrected.

“All right, all of you fools, stop nattering.” Garrison sat up straighter, putting his spectacles back on, pushing away his mug of tea. He bent down to withdraw from his knapsack a fat pile of papers. “Have you all had a nice Christmas? Mine was miserable, reading all of your rubbish. Granted, some did better than others. Shall we start alphabetically?”

Around the table, no one nodded.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s see. Unfortunately, Broflovski, I think this puts you on the spot again.”

“It’s fine.” Kyle shrugged, smoothing his hair away from his face, clearly nervous. He had the least to be nervous about. Stanley wanted to pick him up, and carry him from the room. Thunder rolled outside, flashing against the windows. “Eviscerate me, sir. Go on."

Garrison smiled at him; he was cruel, perhaps, but he respected Kyle. “You’re too hard on yourself. This is solid.”

“Really?”

“Yes, here.” Licking his thumb, Garrison flipped open to a page. “You write a bit around points, not to them. If you’re going to talk about housing conditions in London, don’t simply _allude_ to them. Give me research, boy, _research_. Go to the British Library. Find some city rolls. Give us figures. Your language is beautiful. I think that printing seminar did you well.”

“I agree.” Kyle nodded, a bit more relaxed. “I think it did.”

“Your art, your grasp of art, does your style many favors. It’s delicious, utterly. But this isn’t art history. If you aim to make English sociological, you’d better go find me some data. Do you boys know anything about data?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Regardless. Excellent job. You’re on your way, Broflovski. Just stabilize your emotions, you know.”

“Stabilize them?”

“With data.”

“Oh, of course.” Kyle blushed even harder now. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me,” Garrison snapped. “It’s my job.”

“Of course.”

“Of _course_.” Garrison looked down at his pile. “Cartman,” he said. “Well, Cartman’s not here. His paper’s shit, though, complete rubbish. I fail to see how that boy has not been sent down yet. If any of you want to know how to completely _bungle_ a paper, here’s your example.” He held it aloft, the papers flapping open. It was not very long; Eric had no patience for typing. “He didn’t bother showing up, anyway.”

Stanley scribbled, in the margins of his note tablet, a message to Kyle: _What’s he writing on?_

Kyle sighed, sat up straighter, flipped his own paper over; Stanley caught a glimpse of the straightness of his lines, the mechanical proficiency with which he typed. Lots of editorial comments in the margins from Garrison, but no red-pencil marks for typographical errors. Kyle was neat like that. _Malory_ , Kyle wrote back. _Racial purity. The foundations of English statehood_.

Of course, Stanley figured. He scribbled back, _he would do_.

Kyle didn’t reply. He just shook his head.

“—complete rubbish, Donovan, utter misery,” Garrison was saying. He was apparently in mid-rant. “It’s like you’ve not read a book before in your life.”

“He hasn’t,” Craig said. To this, the table laughed. Even Clyde laughed at his own ineptitude.

“Stop laughing, you imbecile! What do you think, it’s funny to be an idiot? Jokes aside, we’ll have to make an appointment,” Garrison told him. “Marlowe deserves better than this.”

“I see, sir,” Clyde said. He grasped at his paper across the table, and promptly stuffed it in his knapsack. He didn’t bother to look it over.

“Let’s see.” Garrison pulled out the next paper. “Yes, indeed. _Marsh_.”

Stanley legs were now trembling so much he was unsure he’d be able to stand up and run out of the room, were he humiliated here. Not that he _would_ , of course. He would sit there, and he would take it. It was so cruel of Garrison to do this to him, to all of them. But Garrison had no pity.

“Yes, sir.” Stanley felt Kyle’s arm beside him, trying to take his hand. And Token’s hand rested on his thigh, stroking. Here he was, surrounded. It felt less than supportive and more like a trap.

Garrison sighed, sliding the paper down the table. “This is passable.”

Stanley gaped at him. “That’s it?”

“You know of my fondness for Waugh, Marsh.”

“You aren’t fond of Waugh,” Stanley replied.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Exactly.”

“But, sir—”

“It’s passable. A passable paper on an impassable subject. You’re a better writer than you think you are. But even you can’t make me care. Is that enough for you? You want me to sing your praises?”

“No.”

“Well, do you want me to eviscerate you?”

“No!”

“Then keep your mouth shut. Keep your mouth shut, Marsh. It’ll serve you well. Who’s next? Ah, right. _Stotch_.”

Down at the farthest end of the table, on the other side of Eric’s empty chair, sat Butters. He stuck his head forward. “Here, sir.”

“Yes, I can actually see you today,” Garrison said, “since Eric’s decided not to obscure you for once.”

With his own paper out of the way, Stanley leaned back, fumbling into his jacket pocket for his cigarette case.

 

* * *

 

After the tutorial Stanley and Kyle walked down to a café on Market Street, where they sat and had coffees. Kyle lit a cigarette and tapped his nails against the wooden table. He smoked the cigarette down to a nub and then went to the counter to order something. When he came back Stanley looked up from his book and asked, “What did you get?”

Kyle lifted his coffee cup and said, “A piece of shortbread.”

“Oh, that sounds nice.”

“Would you like one?”

“No,” said Stanley, “thank you.”

“You never eat anything.” Kyle pouted, and got up to retrieve his shortbread.

“Were you going to get some work done?” Stanley asked.

Through a full mouth, Kyle said, “Mmm, no, I wasn’t — why?”

“Are you going to the British Library, then? To look for rolls?”

“I don’t know!” said Kyle. “Maybe next weekend. I have a date with Erica tonight.”

Stanley raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t know where she was.”

“I don’t know where she is right _now_! Sleeping? Pulling off? Who can say! Out rowing — I don’t know where she is at all times! She doesn’t tell me anything.” Kyle crammed an enormous bite of shortbread into his mouth, crumbs clinging to the corners of his lips.

“Maybe she won’t show up,” Stanley said, brightly.

Kyle swallowed down the shortbread. “Of course she will. You can be sure of that.” He leered pointedly.

Sighing, Stanley took out his notebook, saying, “Well, have fun.”

The bell tied to the doorknob at the front of the shop clanged. His slice of shortbread consumed, Kyle lit another cigarette. He was facing the door, and answered Stanley’s look of curiosity with a withering, “It’s _Miss B_ , of course.” He stubbed out the cigarette and waved Butters over, crying, “Heartface,” in a cloying way, “I dare say that went well!”

Butters was still in his academic dress, the robe draped over his bony shoulders, looking despite the ubiquity of such a thing and the cheapness of the polyester like a starlet at her premiere in a mink stole. Kyle, who had a real fur coat, scarcely managed to look so believably female. Butters said, “Yes, I’m so relieved,” the pitch of his Northern accent just deep enough to give him away. He was wearing his hair combed out, its length akin to that of a chic bob, no bangs. Under the robe he wore little cigarette pants he had sewn himself and a pair of women’s sandals. He hadn’t had them on at the tutorial, so he had probably stashed them in his book bag. “He liked everyone’s, though, didn’t he?”

“Not Clyde’s.” Kyle lifted his chin for a peck from Butters, and they both made demonstrative kissing noises when their cheeks met. “Stanley? Be a dear—?”

Stanley got up and fetched a chair for Butters from the next table, patting the seat so that he could join them. “Do you want a coffee or anything, Butters?”

“Oh, how sweet of you,” she said, “but just a cup of tea for me. Thank you, Stanley.”

Fetching the tea Stanley heard the whole exchange over his shoulder. Butters was saying, “Well, we met for breakfast at the Oriel commissary, and I asked if he was coming to the tutorial and he said, ‘Oh, the bloody tutorial. No, I’m going back to bed.’ I suggested he come but he really did not want to be bothered.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Kyle said. “He won’t be bothered to show up tonight, either.”

“Oh, no,” said Butters, “he was much looking forward to — that.”

“I don’t know which is more bothersome. The fact that he’ll flunk out of uni if he keeps this up, or the reality that he simply does not like me. That’s the real dagger to the heart.”

“Oh, Kyle, no! Of course he does.”

“He doesn’t act it!”

“He’s Eric, you know, he’s obstinate on the outside, but his interior is all soft.”

“You’d hardly know it, the way he gives it to me. Not that I don’t enjoy it, I do, I’m simply saying — you can’t do it like _that_ to someone you like!”

Stanley interrupted the conversation when he set the teacup down, some beverage sloshing onto the geometric-patterned saucer. “Nothing fancy,” he said, taking his seat. “Just earl grey.”

“Thank you!” Butters opened his robe and reached into the soft, small cross-body purse he was wearing underneath. “What do I owe you?”

“Never mind that,” said Stanley.

“Such a _gentleman_ ,” said Kyle.

“I’m merely being polite.”

“Well, yes. It’s just as I said.”

Butters asked, “Is something wrong? You are both in a low mood.”

“That tutorial was hell,” said Stanley. “He thinks my paper’s rubbish.”

“Oh, _that’s_ rubbish,” said Kyle. “He thought it was quite an achievement! He just doesn’t like Waugh. And no one is required to like every author. There are too many. One’s brain would become clogged up.”

“Fancy that,” said Butters, for no real reason. He sometimes said things merely to demonstrate his engagement. He was loading his tea up with lumps of sugar now, stirring them gently, his bent fingers and wrists expressive as he whisked the spoon around. “Yes, there we are. I’ve been dying for a lovely tea all morning.”

“You might have bought a whole pot,” said Kyle.

“Oh, hush.” Butters took Stanley’s hand and squeezed it. “This is lovely. It’s quite sufficient. Thank you.” He took a first sip, leaving a faint trace of petroleum on the lip of the cup. He turned to Kyle. “You were saying?”

“Nothing important. I’ve forgotten, since we’ve all paused to discuss Stanley’s generosity and heroism.”

“Why are you being such a bitch?” Stanley asked.

“Take a look in the mirror!”

“Oh, boys,” said Butters, with a bit of a sigh. “Can’t this wait?”

“I don’t want to hear about your date tonight.” Stanley crossed his arms. “That’s all.”

“All right,” said Kyle, “perhaps I’ll stop discussing mine if you agree to discuss yours!”

For a moment Stanley was not sure exactly what Kyle meant. But a knowing smile of sorts curled onto Kyle’s lips and he nodded slightly, humming an _mmhm_. He leaned in as if he were claiming a prize. “Go on,” said Kyle. “Tell us.”

“Well.” Stanley sat up straighter and kept his arms crossed. “Darling, there’s nothing to tell.”

“Oh, that’s just rubbish!” Kyle’s fist hit the table. “Who is it! What’s her name?”

“Don’t you think if it were important I’d tell you?”

“I used to think that,” said Kyle. “Well, I’ve my own troubles with Erica. She’s a vulgar old bitch. So I wonder, what’s gotten into you, Stanley? Or, rather — who’ve you gotten into?”

“I’m really not into anyone!” It was true in this case, strictly. In the way that Kyle had intended it. “Don’t you just wish it were easy sometimes?”

“IF what were easy?” Butters asked. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. He’s being lyrical again. But to answer your question, Stanley dear, no. Where’s the joy in something being easy? I, for one, invite a challenge.”

“That’s a healthy attitude!” Butters threw his hands up into the air, fingers curling into his palms. “All right, I should tell you both.”

Kyle asked, “Tell us what?”

“I’ve decided to go down at the end of the year. I’ll move in with Bradley! We’ll get a flat in the city. Maybe Manchester — maybe London! It depends where he finds work. I could perform there, you know! Either place. You’ll have to come!”

“But Miss B!” Kyle clutched a fluid hand to his chest. “I thought you planned to read for the master’s?”

“I will!” Butters sat to attention, hands on the table. “I shall make an application to do so wherever I end up. I should get Garrison’s support — you heard what he said today, that my scholarship is intriguing, it has potential—”

“What would you read for?” Stanley asked.

“Well, English, I’m sure. I’d like to continue my work on Tolkien.”

“Oh.” Stanley shrugged.

Kyle kicked him in the shin. “Be excited! Don’t be such a bitch yourself. That’s very good, Miss B. Congratulations!” Kyle pressed his fingers to his sternum, as if to indicate his heart was swelling. “I am so happy for you.”

“We were discussing it last night, once we’d reunited following the holiday. We can’t bear to be apart any longer. I’m so excited! This is what I’m meant for. To be a helpmeet to him.”

“Why can’t she be a helpmeet to you?” Stanley asked.

“We’ll help each other,” said Butters. “That is what I truly want.”

Picking at the leftover crumbs of his shortbread, Kyle heaved a sigh. “It’s wonderful for you. I would love to have a love affair like that.”

“How do you mean?” Butters asked.

“Mutually loving, I mean. I’m so sick of being overlooked and neglected. It’s wearying. I am prematurely old. I just want to be adored.”

“That’s such rubbish. Do you have any idea how many people adore you?” Stanley stood, pushing his chair away from the table. “Eric is horrid. He’s funny but he’s cruel and it’s a bad combination. Put up with him if you want him or find somebody who does adore you, who treats you how you want to be treated. But either way, you must cease complaining about it. Love him for what he is or be done with it. That’s my advice.”

Butters sat there, stunned, a look of dumb shock on his face. He turned to Kyle as if to ask, _can you believe it_?

Kyle evidently could, for he rolled his eyes and said, “Really, Stanley, is that all?”

  
“Er — yes, that’s — that’s all.”

Pantomiming a yawn, Kyle waved a hand in front of his mouth and said, “Your position’s been noted, Stanley, thank you. Now, are you storming out in a huff, or not?”

“I’m not leaving in any sort of huff, though I am walking out on my own terms. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Oh, Stanley,” said Butters, “don’t leave!”

“Oh, let him go! He’s no fun. He’s so _serious_.”

“One of us should be,” said Stanley, and he did leave. He walked directly to New College, feeling as though a cloud of utter despair were following him all the way. It was actually quite sunny out now, and mild on top of that.

When Token answered the door he said, “Oh, well. This is a pleasant surprise!”

“Kyle is such a bitch,” Stanley said. “May I come in?”

“Yes, of course. Always! What did he do now?”

“He isn’t doing anything! That’s the point.”

“Well, how does that make him a bitch?”

“Because he knows that I — he just knows he is being a wretch and he insists on continuing that behavior! He is having an affair with Eric, and Eric is so awful to him—”

“Who isn’t Eric awful to?”

“Well, that is precisely my point!”

Token rolled his eyes. “Were you coming in?”

Stanley pushed inside and Token slammed the door behind them. “It’s utterly hopeless between them!”

“Stanley. Why do you care?” Token sat on the bed, folding his legs regally. He had the straightest and most self-assured posture.

“I care because he’s my best friend, I suppose.”

“So you wouldn‘t want him to be unhappy?”

“Of course not!"

“How would you react if I told you that knowing all you care about is Kyle makes me somewhat unhappy?”

“He is not all I care about,” said Stanley. “And I would hate the idea of you being unhappy!”

“Well,” said Token, “what would you do to improve my happiness?”

Stanley did not have to think long. He climbed onto the bed immediately.

 

* * *

 

It seemed a long term, and deceptively boring. Wendy threw herself into a translation project, a reworking of _Thérèse Raquin_. Stanley admired her work ethic but found himself missing her company. Twice he invited her to meet Token, and each time she demurred, stating her busyness. “I shall be freer next term, when this task is mostly behind me. It is my hope that I might conclude my obligations before the vac, so that I might spend next term looking for a husband."

So many things about it seemed wrong. “You’re too smart to leave, though! Aren’t you planning on doing a fourth year?”

“Perhaps, if it’s required in my search to find a husband.”

“This is madness,” said Stanley. “You’re too smart for this to be a priority. There are so many things you could do—”

“Couldn’t I do them with a husband?”

“I suppose, but you could do them without one.”

“Well, you’re one to talk. Of course it doesn’t seem like a real problem to _you_. No one’s pressuring you to get married.”

“Well, believe me, they are—”

“Certainly not in the same sense, nor for the same reasons, nor to the same degree. I’d delay it if I could but women not much older than I become spinsters. And there are fringe benefits to such an arrangement — I’d like to find someone to have sex with, for example. Safely, I mean. Without the threat of shame ruining it. I’d like to actually enjoy it, without a looming sense of dread.”

Perhaps she felt comfortable admitting this as they were sitting on the bank of the river, a pair of sandwiches from a dreadful coffee shop sustaining them through a brutal day of coursework, from which their frank conversation was a mere hour-long pause. “You know,” Stanley said, kicking a rock into the river, “it must be nice to have sex freely with one’s husband without the threat of shame resulting. Each time I do it that threat is a part of it, and yet I continue to do it anyway, because it’s otherwise enjoyable. So pardon me, then, if I find your sense of worry and immediacy slightly exaggerated.”

“Find it however you wish but you don’t understand, you couldn’t understand, and I suspect you couldn’t possibly. I have a tutorial in half an hour, so you’ll excuse me—” She tried to push herself up, but her sleek boots were quite impractical.

Standing up, Stanley pulled her to her feet. “I shall walk you, if you aren’t quite sick of me.”

“I am not sick of you! Merely tired of your insistence that our lives are the same. They aren’t the same. You might find a wife in a heartbeat if you wanted one.”

“Then excuse me if I laugh at that idea, because it is _ludicrous_.”

“It’s not as if other men in your position _don’t_ get married.”

They stopped at the stony arch that led back onto the Magdalen grounds proper. “Wendy,” he said, taking her by her shoulders. There was something dark in his voice, and heavy. “Don’t you _ever_ dare suggest something like that to me again. It would be as if I suggested that _you_ go with a woman. How would you enjoy _that_?”

“I sometimes think it would be easier,” she said, “were that an option. Which it is not!”

“It wouldn’t be easy.” His voice was leaden with bitterness. “How could you know me and ever think it would be?”

“Well.” She shook herself out of his grasp, prying one of his hands from her shoulder. “Don’t you go telling me that _I_ need to do, either, and perhaps we’ll understand each other best.”

Stanley agreed that this seemed fair, and he walked her back toward the main road. Coming out of the commissary they ran into Kyle, clad in his robe and shaking like a leaf, his hair all a mess, as if he had done with up with a great deal of mousse and then someone had gone on to pull it apart.

“Darling,” said Stanley, “you look terrible. What’s wrong?”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with me!” Kyle barked, overreacting. “What the hell have you been doing?”

“We were eating lunch,” Stanley said.

“Kyle.” Wendy proffered a limp hand, no joy in her tone at all. “It was rude of him to say that. You don’t look nearly as bad as all that.”

Refusing to take her hand, Kyle put his hands on his hips and said, “Oh, like I really need to hear it from you, too!”

“Well, how have you been?” she asked.

“Just fine!”

“How is your project going? On — Blake, if I recall correctly?”

“Yes,” Kyle hissed, “on Blake, and it’s fine. It’s going well, even.”

“Well, I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Kyle’s work is excellent,” Stanley added, unhelpfully. It earned him a mean glare.

“It’s all right, I suppose.” Kyle rocked on his feet, as if trying to feel taller than Wendy; this despite the fact that he _was_ taller than she, even by quite a few inches when she wore those books with the fat heels. “Garrison’s asked me to stay and do a master’s.”

“Oh my god,” said Stanley, “you hadn’t told me!” He turned to Wendy. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s excellent,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Don’t bother with congratulations. I’m not certain I’ll be able to do it. I’d love to disappear forever into the world of Blake, but sometimes life’s priorities don’t reflect exactly what one wants.” To Stanley specifically, Kyle turned and said, “I don’t tell _you_ everything.”

“Yes, that’s perfectly clear.” Stanley’s heart sank.

Sensing the awkwardness between them, or perhaps merely eager to leave Kyle behind, Wendy took a small curtsey and said, “It’s been wonderful to speak with you, really, and I’m so pleased to hear of your offer. But I shall be late to my next lesson—” She stuck a hand out for Kyle, but drew it away before he could decline to take it. “We shall have to make some plans,” she said, pecking Stanley on the cheek. “Thank you for the sandwich."

When she was gone, Kyle exclaimed, “You bought _her_ a sandwich?"

“It was merely the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Don’t _I_ deserve a bloody sandwich?”

“Do you want me to buy you one?” Stanley gestured to the commissary. They would be running out of sandwiches soon, forced to close for an hour to restock.

“I wouldn’t dare presume make you do anything gentlemanly for _me_ ,” Kyle snapped. “Anyway, that’s the first time an aristocrat has ever curtseyed in my direction. She was taking the piss out of me, wasn’t she?”

“No, Wendy doesn’t do that. It’s your imagination I should think. Listen, do you want to go to dinner in the hall tonight?”

Without even considering it, Kyle said, “I have plans before which I should probably not eat.” As if to really drive the point home he licked his upper lip in a slow, slick motion.

“Great. You know what, I hope you have fun.”

“Who cares if I have fun? What a silly idea.” Kyle put his mouth to Stanley’s ear, brushing back shaggy hair to whisper, “I just want to have an orgasm.”

Though shaking, Stanley managed to quip, “Good luck.”

“Well, thanks,” Kyle said, in a normal volume again. “My luck hasn’t been the best lately, so I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

They embraced casually, in a way that felt to Stanley almost brotherly. He had never had a brother, to his parents’ great disappointment, and for a moment the thought occurred to Stanley that perhaps all of the things he had felt for Kyle over the years — lust, longing, concern, camaraderie, the desperate need to protect — were born of a misplaced hope to one day have a fraternal or familial bond with just one person in the world who truly understood Stanley and all the things he wanted. But at this moment, smelling Eric Cartman’s cheap chemical aftershave overshadowing the sweet scent of Kyle’s perfume, Stanley was not sure they wanted the same things at all, or even understood each other one bit.

 

* * *

 

One afternoon, Stanley was walking with Kyle in St. Cross Road, up to the new English Faculty Library. Kyle hoped they might have some of Blake's letters available on microfiche, as he thought that Garrison had implied this was the case at a recent tutorial. "But who knows what that man is talking about half the time." Kyle scowled, kicking a rock which went skittering across the pavement and into a gutter

Figuring he might as well do some work of his own at the EFL, Stanley had decided to come along. He was not quite regretting it yet, though he was generally distracted by the promise of dinner with Token that evening. "What's wrong?" he asked Kyle. "Surely you're not actually bothered about microfiche."

"Well," Kyle huffed, "it's very annoying to use!" He was quiet for a few beats, opening and closing his mouth as if he wanted to say something but hadn't decided what. Passing a post box and a group of first-years smoking at the corner near Jowett Walk, Kyle said, "Sometimes I feel rather unappreciated!"

Remarks like this made Stanley irritable, for it was his opinion that Kyle was quite appreciated; at least, Stanley knew that he had quite a deep appreciation for Kyle. In fact, he'd feel quite lost without Kyle, and was at all times interested in deferring to Kyle, accompanying Kyle to the library, fretting about Kyle's emotional well-being. Kyle was also the subject of some appreciation from his parents, who found him rather clever and liked his self-discipline, and from Garrison, who always has something encouraging to say to Kyle in tutorial, and never dropped little hints about microfiches to Stanley. Or to any one else, really. When Kyle said he felt unappreciated it surely meant he felt, specifically, that _Eric_ was not appreciating Kyle as fully as he might. And this was frustrating for Stanley, because Eric seemed not to appreciate anything, and Stanley didn't know what he might say about it, anyway. "He doesn't love you like I love you," maybe, though Stanley had spent quite some time wondering if he should ever say this to Kyle. It was unlikely Kyle would be amenable to such a statement. 

So Stanley just endured. "Well, what'd he do now?" he asked, hoping to sound bored by the matter.

"Who's to say he _did_ anything," said Kyle. "It's just the problem. He doesn't _do_ anything. Then I complain and it's too much for him to bear, poor Eric."

"Poor Eric?"

"Well, he's not a patient man."

"I'll say," said Stanley.

"Sometimes I feel like he is receptive to my efforts," said Kyle, "and then sometimes I feel as though he's merely sabotaging my hard work."

What sort of hard work? Stanley wondered. But as usual, he didn't ask. He had his own frustrations, with Token and overall, and the added stress of worrying about Kyle's relationship with Eric threatened to push Stanley from complacently concerned to truly anxious. All things considered, he did not much enjoy feeling anxious. He said, "I don't know what your problem is, specifically, but he's not a pleasant human being. He can be fun to drink with, you know, but sex with him isn't enjoyable." Stanley said this in a very low voice.

"Oh? I find it very enjoyable. It's just afterward that's frustrating. He has all these rowing obligations and he's always dating women."

"Women!" Stanley punctuated this with a brief, forced laugh, unsure if he meant it to be genuinely funny or if piercing the blow to Kyle's ego with camp irony.

"I ask him what he _does_ with them, you know, and he didn't have much of an answer for me, merely implied that I ought not consider it my business. I just wish he would _acknowledge_ me in some sense that didn't involve a lot of slimy grunting. That's just the worst, isn't it?"

Stanley wished he could say something to Kyle, because these malformed complaints shared quite a bit with Stanley's primary contention with Token, namely, that Token had such incredibly narrow sexual preferences that Stanley sometimes found their intimacies frustrating. It would have been satisfying to discuss this with Kyle, but Stanley knew he couldn’t. “Yes,” he said, “it sounds quite awful.”

The modernist tiered striations of the pale library loomed in the distance. Kyle was silent up to the front door. Stanley half expected him to come out and admit that he knew all about Token, and how dare Stanley keep it to himself, and weren’t they best friends, and wasn’t it hurtful? Instead, Kyle cocked his head in an especially pretentious way, drew a heaving sigh, and said, “If I’m to spend my afternoon up to my tits in microfiche, I’ll insist on a cigarette first.”

Stanley lit it for him, cupping his hand against the ferocious breeze of mid-February. “There you are, darling.” He wondered if he had a cigarette for himself.

“Don’t look now.” Smoke billowed from Kyle’s lips, the fag fast between his middle and index fingers like a housewife at the cooktop. “His Ass the Cunt of Nommel has arrived.”

“He’s a duke, darling, so your pun’s not quite apt.” Stanley’s back was to the entrance, and he hoped Craig would not come to speak to them.

“Craig!” Kyle shouted. He waved his cigarette round, ash fluttering in every direction. “Over here, heartface, we see you!”

In pure military lockstep Craig came over, his shoulders boxy in an Italian cloth coat with officious buttons fastened up to the neck. He was holding a large notebook. “Marsh,” he said, “Broflovski.”

“Dear Craig,” Kyle began.

A raised eyebrow flashed a warning.

“Your grace,” Kyle sang, “how lovely to see you at our brilliant new library.”

“This library’s been open two years.”

“Time flies by!” Kyle put the cigarette to his lips. “That coat is delicious. You look delectable, I could eat you up! Though, I grant you, it’s not ladylike to be a glutton — I prefer my beaux help themselves to the first course. Tell me, darling — your grace — have you enjoyed many dishes in the past?”

If nothing else, Craig seemed genuinely confused. “What’s your game?” he asked.

“No game,” said Kyle. “Cigarette?” He sucked at the butt of the fag before inhaling, a hint of his pink tongue visible for just an instant.

“No,” said Craig. “I don’t smoke.”

“Pity,” said Kyle, “with that bona screech of yours.”

“What?” Craig bristled and said, “Really? You know, it’s not polite to tease. Nor is it polite to waste the time of your social superiors.”

“Who said I was teasing?”

“I don’t have time for this,” said Craig, “I have work to do on Milton. Good-bye.”

“Farewell,” said Kyle, then, when Craig was out of earshot: “I do wonder about the color of his eyes.”

“What brought this on?” Stanley asked.

“He’s a number.” Kyle shrugged. “Perfectly alamo, you know, especially with that mouth of his. Shame he’s NTBH, you know.”

“You know,” said Stanley.

“Tell me I’m wrong?”

“Well, I don’t think he is, but he’s definitely _so_ , you know, you can tell in that way he takes a vada at someone’s rear.”

“That is precisely what I’m saying! I thought I caught him looking at mine.”

Stanley smiled wanly. “And Eric’s not enough for you?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” Tossing the butt to the pavement, Kyle stomped it into the ground so it left a smear of paper and ash against the newly laid concrete. “I’ve a date with him tonight, anyway. Who knows? Things might begin to look up.” Kyle sighed. “I’d better go into that microfiche. Come on. If Garrison’s sent me on a wild goose chase I’ll be livid.”

“Just don’t take it out on me, darling.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be fair.”

Stanley stood there for a moment, until he realized what Kyle wanted. He pulled the door open and said, “After you.”

“Cheers.” As Kyle swayed inside, Stanley made certain to get an eyeful of his behind. It rocked with pronounced intention, and then Kyle took a step to the left — disappearing from view, along with his arse.

 

* * *

 

When a knock came at the door around midnight, Stanley dropped his book and then hesitated. Who’d come calling so late? It must be Token, he figured, perhaps he was sauced, perhaps he was looking for a fuck? Stanley became hard thinking of it, the sordid nature of an illicit meeting, the swelling of his cock making it hard to pull on trousers. “Forget it,” he said to himself, as a second knock at the door arrived, followed by some pitiful scratching. “All right, I’m almost there,” Stanley called, flicking his lights off. His cock was struggling to stay in his pants now, but he didn’t mind this so much if it was Token. “I’m here, all right, I’m—”

Stanley swung open the door. “Darling,” he said, looking across at Kyle, his dark-ringed eyes and his mussed hair. Then Stanley noticed the blood, thick on Kyle’s chin and running down his neck into his collar. “Darling!”

“Stanley,” Kyle breathed, all but falling into Stanley’s arms. “I think I need your help.”

“Yes!” Stanley shut the door with a foot. “I should say so!” He led Kyle to a chair, and sat him down. “Who did this? Was this Eric?”

“Well, yes,” said Kyle, but with a full, swollen mouth, it was garbled. “Who else could have done? He socked me.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Calm down, you help me—”

“Help you what, is this your lip?” Stanley took Kyle’s chin in his hand, kneeling down to survey the damage. “Your lip’s split right open!”

“I know, it hurts to talk—”

“Then stop talking.” Stanley hopped to his feet, making for the sink. “We’ve got to get you to a surgeon. Stay right there, I’ll get you a towel.”

“No surgeons.” Kyle sat back in his chair, tucking his legs under him, holding his chest. “They’ll ask questions.”

“Just say someone hit you.” Stanley bunched his white towel into a neat roll, pressing it to Kyle’s lip. “Hold steady, all right. Pressure might stop it. But you probably need this sewn up.”

Time was languid, 20 minutes feeling like a year. By then Stanley’s towel was soaked with blood, not entirely, but the effect was disturbing. Wiping blood from his hands, Kyle started to cry: “If I’m lucky they’ll settle for a fine. But if I’m not, it could be jail, Stanley, and I don’t want to think about — my _poor mother_ , my parents, they’ll be ruined.”

“They won’t be ruined, all right.” Stanley thought of his own father’s colleagues, laughing about Stanley’s bleached hair behind his father’s back. It had been two long years. Stanley took another path: “Surgeons take an oath, you know, it’s their job to help you. Your lip’s bleeding really badly, darling, you have to get it taken care of, I’m afraid—” And he was afraid; they both were, Kyle’s eyes big and wet and his arms shielding himself from the mostly empty room. It made Stanley want to kill Eric, smash his head against an ancient stone wall, make him know for just a moment what he had and what he’d done to it. Stanley had a sort of resolve that he always found unexpected. Someday, he told himself, Kyle’s hand tight in his.

“I can’t go to a surgeon,” Kyle was crying. “Stanley, they’ll know.”

“You’ll just say he socked you.”

“The police will become involved! Eric will say I came onto him!”

“That would incriminate him.”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” Kyle wept, “look at me!” It was true that Kyle’s toenails were painted with a sickly blue varnish, and hiding beneath the circles below his eyes was a smudged layer of eyeliner. Perhaps he had been wearing lipstick, but it would have wiped away with the blood. Perhaps he hadn’t been; that was often a special-occasion treat for Kyle. In the meantime, he was crying: “They’ll lock me up, they’ll castrate me, it’ll ruin my parents, _it hurts so much_!”

Stanley could not bear it. “Wait here,” he said.

Under the sink was a pot, and Stanley filled it with water and put it on his plug-in burner. In his vanity kit he had some mending supplies: a needle-threader, a thimble, buttons, needle and thread. When the water on the burner was boiling Stanley dropped a needle and thread in. Kyle’s sobs permeated the room. “It’ll be all right,” Stanley said. He was trying to remain chipper. “First this, and I’ll take care of Eric for you tomorrow.”

“First what? Stanley. He’ll hurt you, too!”

“I’ll be fine,” said Stanley, though he was not sure that he would. The needle was trembling in his hand as he approached Kyle. “I’ve never done this before. But I think it should help. Are you certain you can’t see a real physician?”

“They’ll imprison me,” Kyle wept. “I don’t want to die in prison.”

“No one’s going to imprison you,” said Stanley, and he meant it. Not on his watch. By force of will he held the needle steady as it passed through Kyle’s lip. “Good boy,” Stanley said softly. “You’ll be good as new, I promise.”

Kyle tried to say, “Oh god,” but it came out weird and garbled. He was clearly in much pain.

Stanley did not tie off the stitches, and was relieved to see that when he was done, the bleeding had stopped. “It’s not going to be pretty,” he said. “But you did so well.”

“I feel horrendous,” Kyle tried to say. “Can we go to bed?”

They lay together in a spooning position, Stanley’s hips to Kyle’s from behind. “Why would he do something like this?” Stanley asked, his hand curled around one of Kyle’s. It was late, and the gas torches lighting the stone passages of the college were all that lit the bedsit. Through this dimness, Stanley could make out the ridge of stitches sewn into Kyle’s lip, and the protrusion of his nose above it.

“Why would anyone?” Kyle replied, hand tensing in Stanley’s grasp, able to decipher much more as he was turned from the window, gazing into the room itself, the gap lamps outside doing their part to illuminate Stanley’s white teeth and chapped lips, catching in the water of his eyes. “He was angry at me, of course. He’s an angry person.”

“That’s no excuse.” Stanley was at a loss for what to say. “My god, darling, I can’t, I can’t explain—”

“He’s a Nazi, did you know? Well, I mean…” Kyle had to pause between bursts of dialogue, to let the threads holding his lip together throb a bit before he could continue. He shook Stanley’s hand from his and put it to his mouth.

“Shhh. You don’t have to say anything, darling. Please sleep. You should sleep through the lesson tomorrow, really. Garrison will have to miss you.”

“I can’t. I have to go.”

“Eric will be there. _Shhh._ You don’t have to speak. I can close the drapes if the light it bothering you.”

“No, it’s fine. I like it. I can see you.”

“It’s too bad that’s all you’ve got to look at.”

“ _Stanley_.” Kyle winced.

“You all right?”

“Ah, somewhat,” Kyle gasped, reaching for the shoulder across the bed. “Your name hurts the most, but it’s all right.”

“I can give you some aspirin, wash it down with sherry…”

“Oh, that’s good, I’d end up vomiting like a botched suicide.”

“I could roll a reefer I suppose.” Stanley brought his hands against Kyle’s neck, trying to soothe something, but not really sure of what, or how. “No one ever thought I should be a medic, you know. Perhaps I should leave Magdalen and become a nurse.”

“Oh, you’re not that good, Sta — _ow_.” Kyle’s bottom lip flattened out around the short _A_ , which was a pity; he had always found the name _Stanley_ , with its drawl of _ahhhh_ against the lick of a long _E_ , to be minutely graceful — and now he couldn’t even pronounce it. When he did, his lip began to pull, straining at the clumsy sutures. “Good bedside manner,” he concluded, trying to keep things short and undramatic, “but you’d give yourself away.”

“Well, I wasn’t being serious. But I don’t care. Next time Eric clocks you in the face I could fix you correctly. Maybe instead of taking jobs in the City, we should all take a page from Miss B and be housewives.”

“Oh, but she’s an artist.”

“So am I, I suppose. Or, I could be. Isn’t nursing an art?”

“For spinsters. Divorcees.”

“What’s the difference?”

Kyle held back a snicker. “You’re evil.”

“Not like Eric, though.” Stanley’s eyes narrowed; this Kyle could make out in the faint lamplight. “Assuming, like you say, he is a Nazi. Although I thought there were no more Nazis.”

“Tell the Israelis.” Pause. “His grandpa, a Nazi. I know. He’s showed me some things. Little medals, things. Barks German to his mother over the phone—”

“You don’t have to speak,” Stanley reminded him, “if it hurts.”

“Reminds me of my mother. She speaks Yiddish on the phone.”

“What’s Yiddish?”

“You know, Jewish.”

“Thought it was called Aramaic, you know, _Hebrew_.”

“No, Yiddish is different, German-Jewish, she spoke it to my grandmother.”

“Does your father speak it?”

“Oh, no. Very Old World. Daddy wouldn’t have that. He won’t hear the word _shtetl_.”

“Darling.” Stanley blinked at the torch lights he saw flickering outside his window, the plaster molding where his walls met the ceiling.

“England is the old world. You’ve never been to Americaa _aaaaoow_. Oh, _fuck_ —”

“Shhh.”

“It hurts.” Shutting his eyes, Kyle rolled onto his back. “If I die from this, Stan, just — I love you.”

Stanley was quiet for a moment, both of them breathing heavily. Dried blood lingered on his fingers, hiding in the small cracks in his skin and underneath his nails. He would try to scrub it out in the morning, and the thought was upsetting. How could he voluntarily wash away the trace of Kyle from his hands as if it were nothing? His heart was pounding, the adrenaline making Kyle’s nonsensical pain-induced remarks difficult to parse.

“I’ll kill him,” said Stanley.

“Don’t pretend. No you won’t. I’m sorry, I have to—”

“Shh.” Stanley pressed a kiss to Kyle’s temple. “Get some sleep.”

“Thank you, though.”

“Get some sleep, darling.”

Soon after they both passed out.

 

* * *

 

“So, Kyle slept over?” Token was casual over the phone, as he was in real life, as was his way. “Again, of course. _Right_."

“Nothing sinister happened,” Stanley asserted, all set to defend himself. “I mean, nothing salacious occurred between the two of us. Something sinister _happened_ , and that would be Eric Cartman—”

“Stanley—”

“I don’t know what Kyle sees in him, really, I mean, he’s handsome _of course_ but that’s not really enough to make up for splitting someone’s lip, is it?”

“Stanley?”

“Viscount?”

“You’re talking about Kyle again.” The discomfort was audible in Token’s voice, loud and clear across the wires, even if he maintained a cool, steady register. “I know it’s awful, Stanley, but _really_ , Eric Cartman is a brute and I think we know by now what happens with brutes. And honestly, don’t call me ‘Viscount.’ ”

“But Token, dear — I only mean it jokingly. It’s affectionate.”

“I know. But I’d rather not.”

“Well, you _are_ going to have to fill those shoes one day, hmmm?”

Token sighed. He hated his social stature, hated how Stanley made fun of him for it, thought it was silly. “If I’m unlucky enough,” he joked, although the self-deprecation in his voice was all too real. “Well, we missed you at lessons. I hope Kyle’s feeling better.”

“He looks frightful.”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you want to come and visit?”

Without hesitation, Token said, “No.”

“Well, I miss you,” Stanley said. “I’ve a date with Miss Testaburger later, but after that I’m free — assuming Kyle goes home. I wish he’d stay clear of Eric for a bit, but I’ve no doubt that wanker’s been holding a glass to my door all day—”

“So why is your friend Wendy ‘Miss Testaburger’ while you insist on calling me ‘Viscount’?” Token had no patience for hearing further about Eric, so he regressed to arguing about titles. “Her father’s an earl — like mine, or have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten. I’m trying to amuse myself. It’s been a long day — a longer night. I performed _surgery_ , Token. Stitched his lip back together.”

“I know. And I’m sure your handiwork was splendid—”

“ _Dreadful_.”

“—but he should have gone to a clinic or something, I mean…”

“They would have asked him how he split his lip, Viscount — _er_ , Token.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of injuries at the college surgery that call for discretion. “

Stanley said, “Probably,” but he said it in a way that told Token he didn’t agree, exactly. “Look, Kyle’s been through a lot. He’s sleeping — I’ve got him here; I don’t want him to go. But when he wakes, he’ll want to wander off. He doesn’t want to dwell on things. Malady isn’t his strong suit.”

“I’d be troubled if it was.”

After swallowing, Stanley continued in a hushed and serious voice: “Token, I know it seems that I dwell too often on Kyle, but, well, he is my best friend and he’s in a, well — a _situation_ that’s become physically harmful. There’s nothing between us. I mean, there’s nothing going on with Kyle. We’re close, I know, I’m sure you think _too_ close, but there’s nothing—”

“I know.”

“I do mean it, Token, I’ve told you we’ve been intimate, but that was ages ago.”

“I know,” Token repeated. “Stanley, I believe you. I know there is nothing between you, and I haven’t got a leg to stand on, even if there was. It’s not what’s _between_ you, anyway, that would bother me.” There was a pause, and an awkward moment of silence. Then: “I love you, Stanley. I’ll see you tomorrow, I’m certain. After your date with Lady Wendy, I suppose — whom I’d love to meet.”

“You should come out with us.”

“I think I’d like that — or maybe, another time…”

“You’d like her, Token — she’s funny.”

“Oh, _you’re_ funny.”

“Well, speak for yourself.”

“That’s all I can attempt.” Token cleared his throat. “We’ll have to talk later.”

 

* * *

 

Stanley did manage to introduce Token to Wendy. It was on a frozen, cloudless late February evening at a straight pub packed to the rafters. It was dinner Stanley had suggested, but Token was due back in London to attend a brunch the next morning in honor of his grandparents’ sixty-fifth wedding anniversary, and Wendy was complaining of the unending translation project she was struggling to complete. (“I’ve got the translation bit done, but the whole thing reads so untrue to the original. It’s not fair to Zola, really,” she’d admitted recently.) So they found themselves at a table in the back, everyone bundled in wool jumpers and extra pairs of socks. Wendy kept shivering, and Token offered her his coat.

“How kind!” she said, beaming. She wrapped herself up like a girl pretending to drape her mother’s stole across her shoulders, regally and with confidence.

“Anything for a lady,” Token had said.

“Anything, really?” Wendy batted her eyelashes.

“Almost anything. I try to have standards.”

Stanley beamed at them. Here he had been expecting this conversation to go dreadfully, and already they were laughing like fraternal twins who’d shared every joke since infancy. He only wished Kyle, the missing third of his emotional well-being, could be there. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with?” Stanley had asked six times at breakfast. “Wendy finds you so amusing.”

“I have better things to do,” Kyle had snapped; those better things were either revisions to his Blake reading list, or clinging to Eric’s shoulders while Kyle’s arse was repeatedly pounded, sweat dripping into his face. It made Stanley sick, thinking about this, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind — until meeting up at the pub, where the conversation was going so well and so rapidly that Stanley was able to miss Kyle only in brief, painful snatches.

“Oh, are you from Hungerford?” Wendy was asking Token.

“Well, the estate is outside Hungerford,” he was replying. “But we spend so much time in London. Black House is so stately. You must visit some day.”

“I couldn’t impose,” she demurred.

“Oh, Wendy.” Token sighed, rubbing her shoulder, sipping his drink. “You’d look so at home there.”

“If I didn’t know any better, Lord Black, I’d think you were trying to seduce me, to lure me back to your castle and lock me up.”

Token laughed. “You’re a clever girl,” he said.

Wendy laughed. “That is how I get top marks in my French course!”

Stanley laughed with them. They got along. They got along! It felt so relieving.

“What’s your telephone number?” Wendy asked. “Stanley, have you got a pen? I need to take down Token’s number.”

“Oh.” From the pocket of his overcoat, Stanley produced a biro. He always had one. “Yes, of course. _Here._ ” Uncapping it, he scribbled Token’s phone number on the back of her hand.

“You know it by memory?” Token asked him.

Stanley hesitated to admit that he had practiced dialing this number late at night, just so he’d have it inscribed on his heart forever. “Of course,” Stanley answered. “It’s just convenient.”

“We do speak a lot,” Token figured. “You’ll call me, though, Wendy, won’t you?”

She nodded. “Of course!”

“That’s a good girl.” Token finished his pint and flashed her a smile. He flashed one at Stanley.

Stanley had never felt so important as when he brought together two dear friends. Shame Kyle couldn’t have been there.

 

* * *

 

Before the term sped to a close Stanley found himself waiting outside of Garrison's office, fiddling with his latest draft. It comprised 20 evenly typed pages, each one grayed at certain edges from Stanley's nervous rereading. He was certain it was free of typographical errors, and though it was not a _final_ draft per se he felt that, at long last, he had reached a sort of solace in terms of what he wanted to say: Sebastian was unobtainable because he was so flawed; Julia unobtainable because she was flawless. Stanley could see it clearly, the distinction between the two choices, each above Charles' station. Charles never pursued Sebastian, not really; even that fateful trip to Morocco was less a gesture of love than of pity, and Stanley was not certain that Waugh had fully intended their affair to be sexual, or their love erotic. It was Julia whose love was valid, and Julia who rejected Charles. To be turned away at the precipice of validity! The very notion stung. Here Stanley checked his watch and saw that Garrison was not running behind; Stanley himself was early. After this, at 4, Stanley would meet Token for tea and they would discuss how it had gone. And then, the term would be over, and he would slink back to his bedroom and sleep.

A shivering first-year shambled out of the office, Garrison peering out. "Marsh," he said, crooking his finger at Stanley. "Come inside."

Stanley fell into a hard chair in front of Garrison's desk; he shook as he handed over the worn manuscript. It was still cold, a drizzle misting the thick windows. Wet buds stuck in gross clusters to the creases between the woodwork and the glass. "This isn't final," Stanley said, crossing his legs and sitting up straighter. "But I believe I have reached a point of cohesion. I am happy with it."

Garrison scowled at the draft, and then he pushed it to the side. "I don't know what business a journalist has trying to write literature," he said. "There's a matter-of-factness to journalism that always ruins the mood. Fiction, real fiction, tells truth devoid of facts. Do you know what I mean?"

"I understand what you mean," said Stanley, "but I don't know that I agree."

"And what do you understand me to mean?" Garrison pressed.

Stanley took a deep breath. He uncrossed his legs and sat up taller, straighter. "I believe you mean that a fiction writer must invent information, that this invention is the nature of detail. That the truth of fiction is in the pattern the writer weaves, which details he invents and how. I just don’t agree with this. I think human perception is the detail, and it’s how the writer employs that perception, which is to say, the facts of his own life, that determines whether a composition is fiction or memoir.” Stanley cleared his throat and sat up. “ _Sir_.”

Garrison tented his fingers. “Go on, Mr. Marsh.”

“Oh, well. That’s it, really. … Only that, I suppose, it’s the application of a narrative to one’s personal facts that makes the text a fiction. Because it’s a fiction to expect a narrative trajectory on one’s own life."

“So it’s narrative convention that makes fiction?"

“Well, yes.”

“And this is what Waugh does with the details of his own experience?”

“That’s what I think, sir, yes.”

“And do you also think that at 21 you are old enough and in possession of experiences enough to make a determination on the facts of your own life?”

“If I am not well disposed to do so, who is?” Stanley asked.

“The older version of yourself with the ability to turn around and examine his life with a better-informed perspective.”

“And what if I grow old and lose the ability to look back with adequate perspective? What if I do not grow old and I lose the opportunity to commit my experiences to prose because I did not do so when I was young?”

“Well, life is a bit of a gamble,” said Garrison. “Just a bit. I thought I would write once, but I ended up teaching at Oxford instead. Not bad, that. But I'm afraid there's no easy answer for what a man should do with his life."

"I want to write," said Stanley, without hesitation.

"Yes, go on."

"Go on? That is it, that is what I should like to do. I want to write."

"Well, certainly," said Garrison, "but _what_ are you going to write?"

Stanley slumped, feeling defeated. "My father asks me the same question."

"And don't you have an answer for him?"

"I've spent so many years specializing in the analysis of literature that I assumed I would simply apply those critiques to my own experience."

"Yes? So you wish to write a memoir?"

"No, sir," said Stanley. "Fiction."

"And you wish to follow Waugh's example, surely?"

"I don't wish to follow any one man's example, sir. But I disagree with you about experience. I've got the experience. I wish to make good on it." He crossed his arms. "That's all."

Garrison regarded him for a moment with an expression of delight. “Tell me, Stanley. Is this a conversation you’d like to continue having?”

“I’d like to have any conversation with anyone, sir. Provided they didn’t tell me to my face I was incorrect. I wouldn’t mind if they thought it, of course. But I’d like for my feelings to be treated with merit.” Stanley cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if I’ve become overly emotional.”

“My dear boy, don’t apologize. You are well within propriety.”

“Literally no one’s ever said that to me.”

“I suspect they may have and you simply cannot remember it.”

“Nobody has,” Stanley said. “No one. Please excuse me, sir, but I must ask — is it just going to be like this?”

Garrison leaned forward. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, the trajectory of my life. Am I going to feel forever as if I’m all wrong, as if I’m — just nothing?”

“Well, I don’t know. I suppose it’s something all men fear. The shared anxiety of mankind.”

“I mean me,” said Stanley. “Please, sir, surely you understand.”

Perhaps Garrison was feeling charitable, or perhaps he liked Stanley more than the boy had suspected. He stood up, placing his hand on the back of his desk chair. “Academia has always suited my purposes in that regard. This institution can bolster a person so that he never feels as though he is nothing, merely part of something else, something bigger than he is, ancient and dominating. There's a sort of comfort, to me, in this world." He cleared his throat. "But more specifically than _that_ and I'm afraid I'm unsure what you mean."

"I mean—" Stanley was about to say something, to let it all come tumbling out of him, unguarded. Then he caught a look that was crystal clear, unmistakable to Stanley's skills of perception: _do not continue_. The man had been Stanley's don for going on three years now, and in that moment Stanley was certain there would never be a fourth. The thought filled him with dread, and he began to wonder how he would remain in touch with Kyle — he would move back in with his parents; they would make weekly dates at the pub; perhaps one day they would share a flat—

"If you've another two years to spare," Garrison said, "I invite you to read for a master's."

"Really?" Stanley asked.

"Yes," he said. "How does that sound?"

"What should I say?"

"I don't know," said Garrison, "it doesn't matter to me. What do _you_ want to do?"

"What is Kyle doing?"

"Well, what does _that_ matter? Forget about _him_ — what do _you_ want to do?"

"I'd be delighted to take it!"

"Then I shall see you next year."

Stanley stood, grabbing the desk to brace himself. "Well, that's all right then!"

"Yes, very well," said Garrison. "Now get out of my office."


	3. Trinity: April-June 1967

At the start of the spring holiday Stanley found himself with three invitations. He was welcome to stay in Oxford, to go home and see his parents. They did not live far away from Magdalen itself, and the façade of their stunted little row house with its minuscule, manicured front garden and overgrown lawn in the back badly needing to be weeded was still, in Stanley's heart, his only real home. He thought of his mother's mediocre cooking and the pantry full of beer; the parade of children in the house as his sister came by with them nearly every morning; the little bed on which Stanley had come to many striking and unnerving realizations about himself as he grew from a boy to an adolescent and then, at long last, into whatever he was now. He felt more confident than ever, yet more vulnerable, too. He had written his father and mother a letter declaring his intention to do a fourth year, and that Garrison had offered him the chance to read for a master's. Randy Marsh had written back, _I hope this will be the experience that cements your commitment to a responsible life_. There had also been a promise to continue paying for Stanley's basic needs, beyond those which the university would cover. He would have liked to have seen his mother, but Stanley felt as though in some sense he had negotiated a contract between his parents and himself which was now sealed. He did not long to go back there.

Kyle had invited Stanley into the city, for a week if not the entire vacation. He had done this at the end of a drunken conversation in which Stanley had assured Kyle that he did not, in fact, believe Kyle was a bitch. Perhaps this had been influenced by the fact that, since Stanley had recently assisted Kyle with the delicate operation of (in Kyle's opinion) helping him avoid a conviction for gross indecency, and dying in Reading Gaol, they were now on the most intimate terms. Stanley adored Kyle and longed to see London again, but the sight of Kyle's mangled lip just made him afraid and unhappy. No number of furious glares at Eric had elicited any response, other than a sort of hefty shrug that said to Stanley, "He deserved it," which did not much help. But Stanley did not know what Kyle might possibly have done to deserve such a damaging blow and Kyle was not forthcoming on that point. Perhaps it was simply none of his business at all. Then there was the issue of Kyle's mother and father, who were pouring thousands into the now privately handled hunt for their missing son. Stanley might fantasize about secluding himself from the world to read and write to his heart's content, but the fact of the matter was that there was too much, too many people, whose loss Stanley could not bear. Kyle was foremost among those people.

And now Token was another. He had, in the most casual and off-hand way, asked Stanley to come down with him for a week to Llewych, his family estate. "I cannot invite you for the entire vacation, sadly," as Token would go with Craig and Clyde and some others to Monte Carlo for a stag weekend. They planned to meet up again, in London, when Token returned from this jaunt.

Craig planned to wed in a fit of extravagance in August, at the country estate of Annie, the duchess of Nommel to-be. Craig himself had become disengaged from lessons, barely scraping by, seemingly consumed by his new role as a peer. "It is difficult, being an aristocrat," he'd quipped at one recent tutorial. Taking this for a joke Stanley had laughed, and then received a talking-down from Craig that even Token later said was harsh. Butters had been horrified, telling Craig it wasn't nice to lash out at one's social inferiors; but then, that was the sort of thing Butters would say, as he continued to fancy himself a great equalizer, even as he spoke dreamily of how he longed to make elaborate roasts for Bradley for dinner. Around the time the term wound down, Bradley was offered a job in London as an underling assistant at a publisher of Christian liturgy. "I'm so proud of him!" Butters gushed. He then wept on the pavement as Bradley's bus pulled away, Butters' hair tied into two thin pleats and his bangs held back with a barrette he'd made out of a bit of old ribbon. It struck Stanley as a bit romantic and a lot silly, since Butters planned to go down and join him as soon as possible. Their last kiss must have been had in private, but at the station they embraced as only lovers could: soggy, soft voices, their bodies fitting together seamlessly, no disjunctions. Stanley wanted to hate them, and Bradley in particular, but it was so pure, he couldn't.

"Good riddance to the old bat," Kyle had said later. "She was never any fun at all." Then he excused himself and vanished for the evening. Stanley suspected the thing was back on with Eric, despite the fact that Kyle's lip was still double its natural size and marked with crude little holes where he'd pulled out the thread himself. "At least my nose distracts from it a bit," was Kyle's bitter observation on the subject. Suspecting Kyle of continuing his dreadful affair, Stanley took Token up on the offer to go for a week to Llewych.

The house was nothing Stanley had wanted it to be, a Blenheim Palace or a Castle Howard, the ideal Brideshead of his fantasies. Instead it turned out to be a dreary second- or perhaps even third-hand Jacobean, all boxy in the front and narrow in the wrong places. At least, Stanley figured, they'd have appointed it luxuriously on the inside, but the décor was curiously mismatched. Select rooms were furnished grandiosely; others were nearly barren. There was a general shabbiness to the place that felt, to Stanley, like a betrayal. Black House, in London, was a Georgian townhome on a gated square garden, the façade like cricket whites bleached and then dirtied and then bleached again, tasteful but used; distinguished. This house in the country sat upon the rolling green lands that wounded young men wept gently over in Somme trenches some 50 years prior. The fertile, undulating fields of elegiac England — and then the ugly, half-empty house, and Token's parents unaccounted for as Stanley was given a tour.

"It's a weird old place," Token explained, bringing Stanley out of a second-floor window and onto a bit of gabled roof that looked over the backyard. "This is the only good view." Below there was an even herb garden planted with boxwood right-angled borders, a neatly contained contrivance with a gravel path and a small reflecting pool in the middle, the water khaki-green and murky. Back in Token's room there was no trace he truly lived there, save for a dozen Pringle sweaters in the dresser. Wendy's parents' home in the country had been preserved like a museum, opened only selectively before the family retreated back to the city. Llewych Hall felt like a drab shooting club, the type Stanley had been exposed to in his youth by his uncle. This drably appointed sort of place was like the underfurnished and overarticulated relative of the kennels at which Stanley had been forced to house his dog when he'd been taken hunting as a boy. It gave Stanley a cold chill which he chalked up partly to the literal cold and partly to the memory of enduring suffering and loss. He did not want to associate these feelings with Token, whose skin was warmth personified, his geniality something Stanley was only slowly coming to accept. Stanley wondered if they would make it on this trip, or if Stanley's desires would have to be stowed away in the presence of this damp and unwelcoming house. The son of a common geologist, Stanley suffered the mediocrity of this place as Token pulled back curtains to expose heavy stone walls which began to sink over the centuries until they bowed slightly, as if the spine of a man who's labored in the mines for 40 years, the curve perceptible when mentioned, and yet subtle enough to be missed without a hint. That was the cause of the dilapidation at Llewych Hall; it was only slowly realized.

Though there was a formal dining room with an ebony table that sat 28, Stanley finally met Token's parents when they sat down to dinner at a small laminate dinette set in the shambling kitchen. "There are formal kitchens, of course," said Token's father, the earl. "But we prefer to eat simply, here." It was a dinner of cold pork sausages, dauphinois potatoes, canned green beans, and a trifle which Token's mother had picked up from a pastry shop in town. The earl produced a bottle of wine he had purchased in London on his way back from work.

"What do you do?" Stanley asked, to be polite.

"I work in the legal department at EMI, the record company." For a moment he waited for a gasp of recognition from Stanley. When it did not come, he said, "Most people are surprised to learn that I work there."

"Should I be surprised?" Stanley asked.

"I don't know," said the earl, "what does your father do?"

"He is the Class of 1899 Professor of sedimentology at Oxford University," said Stanley.

"Well, that's quite interesting!" said Token's mother, the countess. "I took a degree in chemistry in my youth, did you know?"

Stanley gazed at her blankly. He knew nothing of these people, it was now quite clear.

"So you are in the same course as Token," the countess continued.

"Well, yes," Token said, "that is precisely how we met. In the same sense that I am working on Conrad, Stanley is working on Waugh."

"So you knew James?" asked Token's father. "Such a spirited young man."

"Only briefly," said Stanley. "He was incredibly friendly."

"Yes, his parents are dear friends of ours."

"The most important thing you must learn from something like that," said Token's mother, "is to value each friend, and to really treasure them. You might imagine his death will be poetic, but perhaps it may be random. That is an important lesson to learn in one's youth."

"Do not presume to live as if there is opportunity ahead," said Token's father. "Every opportunity is now."

Token's fork scraped across his plate. "I didn't invite him here for a lecture, though."

"Does he have any girls?" the earl asked Stanley. "Token is so handsome. He should be seeing someone, don't you think?"

Without vomiting from nerves, Stanley carefully considered each word: "Well, he is very handsome, but he's also very studious. We've been working with one another on our theses. Who has time for girls?"

"Time is so crucial," said the earl. "You must cherish it. Token, have you taken him to the chapel?"

"Well, no, Dad, of course not."

"You might take him out there. Perhaps Mr. Marsh might like to see it."

Sighing, Token pushed his plate away and said, "Yes, that's an excellent idea. Thank you for the suggestion." He then quickly finished the end of his glass of wine.

Token showed Stanley to a guest bedroom which was well-appointed in the strictest sense but offered little real comfort. There was a single-bed with a worn-looking coverlet and a side table stacked with ancient books with peeling covers. Stanley examined their spines, poring over the details. They were books of poetry, metaphysical mostly, and Stanley had to halt himself from cracking one open and reading it until daybreak. The fact was poetry reminded him of Kyle, of how Kyle could fall into a book of poetry for hours and come to know every nuance of the text on both a surface and a deeper level. Stanley brushed his teeth and simply fell asleep thinking of Kyle and his fur coat, his pink lips, and his starchy-textured auburn hair. Perhaps it was the thought of Kyle that helped Stanley settle into rest in the overly drafty little room.

* * *

Token's parents were to host a cocktail party in the evening, and Token spent the day showing Stanley around the nearby town. It wasn't much, and Stanley had experienced his share of gracious English country life. Yet something about exploring the area was entertaining to Stanley, a slim copy of _The Green Carnation_ in his back pocket. The town wasn't much, though being a Saturday there were the typical market stalls in the center, sleepy young things and astringent old women behind the counters of the stores along the high street. Token stopped to buy flowers for his mother, a gesture that Stanley found touching; when they sat down at a pub for lunch he pulled one early daffodil from the bunch and placed it on Stanley's knee.

"What's this for?" Stanley asked, rolling the stem between his fingers.

"I'm just glad you came down with me, that's all." Token was wearing a camel hair coat, not fashionable but timeless, cut in a blazer style over a purple polo. He did not fit into the town much at all, though Stanley understood that in some sense he must have been a local celebrity, the future squire. He approached everything — each market stall, each shopkeep, the bar at the pub — with an amiable detachment. Token seemed both common to this place and exceptional from it, his handsomeness almost too good for the weather-beaten people who lived here. A raucous shooting party came in, the men clad in crisp tracking gear and the ladies in Hermes headscarves and tight pants. Token seemed to know them, and he waved and raised a glass toward the group, which hollered back at him. "Local people," he said, resting his elbow on the table. "It comes with the territory."

In his battered old trench and worn plimsolls, Stanley felt neither handsome nor sophisticated. He pulled _The Green Carnation_ from his pocket and plucked the flower from its lengthy stem.

"What's that for?" Token asked.

"Well, you can't very well have me walking around with a daffodil," said Stanley.

"Why not? I don't care. They needn't know where you got it."

"Well, this way I'll have it forever." Carefully, Stanley pressed it into the middle of the book and sealed its pages shut tightly around the daffodil's vital shape. There was an awkward gap in the book's edge and an obvious undulation in the cover, but Stanley felt pleased with his decision. He could further press it in something heavier later. "I love it, dear, thank you."

"Very good." Token gave a slight sigh, as if unimpressed. Whether with the day as it was unfolding or Stanley's improvised flower press, Stanley did not know.

At the end of their meal, when Token was finishing a pint of Guinness and Stanley was pushing mushy vinegar-soaked chips around his plate, the serving girl who brought the meals from the kitchen strode by their table, turned, and paused. She put a hand on her fleshy hip and said, "That party over there's paid your bill."

Token shrugged. "All right, darling. Cheers."

She stalled there a moment, her ironed bangs jutting out toward them. Then she made a pleasant face at Stanley, puckering her lips. "Come round here often, do you?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "I'm just visiting."

"D'you like the cinema? _In Like Flint_ just hit the theaters. There'll be a showing at 7 after I'm off for the evening."

Stanley felt immediately uncomfortable. "Sorry to say I have evening plans." He tried to smile at her but he just felt stupid. "Much obliged."

"Tell you what," said Token. From his pocket he produced a billfold, laying a 10-pound note on the table. "For the party over there. The next round's on me." He stood. "And keep the rest, of course."

She tucked the bill into her front pocket, patting it for safety. "Cheers, then."

"Yes, thanks." Token looked down. "Stanley?"

The topic of what had transpired was not broached until the walk back to the house later that afternoon. The air had grown a bit chilly, and the sky had become cloudless.

"What did you think," Token asked, "of the girl at the pub?"

"Well," said Stanley, "not too much. But then, I rarely think of girls anyway."

"You didn't think she was all right?"

"She was fine for a girl in a pub. That's all."

"You've no thoughts on girls _whatsoever_ ," said Token.

"Well, that was clumsily done," replied Stanley, "and to be honest, no, I've no thoughts on girls, though it did occur to me that _that one_ in particular must do something for her hair. It's very 1962, isn't it, a bit _Music Man_ -ish?"

"And you didn't notice her body?"

Stanley stopped walking and put his hands on his hips, raising an eyebrow. "And I suppose you did?"

"Well, yes," said Token. "She had a very nice one. You didn't notice? Dramatic hips." He made a curving gesture with his hands, outlining the memory of her shape.

"Why would I have noticed? She was our waitress. I made no particular study of her."

"Very well." Token sighed, putting his hands in his pockets. "Well, she liked you, so you could have had her."

"I didn't want her!" Stanley threw his hands up. "What's this about? Do you want her?" He heard his voice raising. "Go back and get her."

Token did not seem offended. Instead, he held out his arm for Stanley to take. As they were relatively secluded, nearby to a hedgerow, the gesture was accepted. They resumed their walk. "It's just that I wonder what exactly constitutes this lack of interest. What makes a person want one thing, and not the other?"

"I don't know, viscount." Stanley's voice had a distinct weariness in it; he sounded rather sexily hoarse. "No one does."

The remark hung between them for a moment, and Token opened his mouth as if he wished to comment. But then their forward progress revealed the manor house rising before them in the distance, and he bit his lip. The remark remained unprotested, for the time being.

* * *

When it was time to go down for the party, Stanley put on a pair of pressed twill slacks and a button-down with a dinner jacket. In the mirror Stanley studied his reflection, wondering if he should brush his hair or not. Certainly slicking it back was out of the question, but was it considered impolite to neglect to brush it? Stanley liked the way his hair fell about his face carelessly, and he felt it made him look masculine and confident, not minding what he looked like. Yet this was to be a nice party at the home of some kind aristocrats — feeling considerate, Stanley settled on a compromise, combing his hair into some semblance of order with his fingers. All things considered, he looked rather decent like this. One of the troubles of being homosexual was that one felt a certain sort of pressure to groom needlessly. Kyle would have been plucking his eyebrows in preparation, spritzing perfume behind his neck, and applying short strokes of concealer under his eyes and around his nostrils. That was if he was being low-key. In front of the mirror Stanley fidgeted for a moment — shouldn't he be doing something else? Wasn't there anything left to fix? But, no, this was it. He was dressed and he looked good. Stanley took a deep breath and shut out the light, walking up the hallway to Token's room. From downstairs he could hear clinking and chatting, the plucking of calm harp strings, and the soft tap of leather soles on hard carpet. Ostensibly Stanley was somehow late.

And when he knocked on Token's door, he was shocked to find Token in a tuxedo, with actual tails. It was a moment of great stress, given Stanley's terror that he had somehow missed this social cue, and the feeling of lust and attraction that began to form around how well and truly good Token looked in this formal attire. "Oh," he said, scratching briskly at his short hair. "Well, I see this won't do."

"I'm so sorry," Stanley said, and he was. "I didn't know — I feel so provincial."

"Oh, nonsense," said Token, and it was a relief to Stanley to hear lightness in his voice. " _Berkshire_ is provincial, dear. Who wears a tux to a casual party in 1967? It's absurd." He yanked Stanley inside of his room.

"Really I feel stupid." Stanley sat on the bed, wondering if Token intended to lend him a suit.

"Oh, don't. You look so—" Token needed a moment to pick a word, apparently. "Handsome, really. Honestly. Let's see here." He began to slip out of his coat.

For just a moment the idea flashed in Stanley's mind that they would have sex, something they had not done on this jaunt at all. Token's cuffs were unlinked, his trousers re-hung, and Stanley saw that in Token's boxers there was a sturdy half-erection, primed for cautious growth. But then with a sigh Token began to dress again, this time in clothing that matched Stanley's more ideally.

"I won't have you feeling stupid. It won't look half as bad if we go down like this together."

"You don't have to change on account of me!"

"Nonsense," he repeated. "It will be fine, trust me."

There were some stares at the party, but trailing Token made it feel acceptable and glamorous. Stanley felt a bit famous, as if everyone was wondering who he was and what they could do for him. Token incessantly introduced him as "my Oxford friend," which both stung and was true, and Stanley made a sad, silly little game of drinking a cocktail which was on offer each time this was stated. It was a sort of premature summer-fruit squash cut with gin and a paper-thin slice of cucumber, served in an old, open-wide champagne glass. It wasn't quite strong enough, and soon Stanley abandoned his game and nibbled politely on Berkshire pork and stilton tarts, finger food that soaked the paper napkins on offer with velvety grease. If anything they seemed to have sat under a broiler for some time, the exposed edges of the pastry browned to brittleness.

In the sense that it was a cocktail party where proved to be a dearth of food; small plastic cups were stuffed with dollops of Eton mess, which Stanley felt should have been considered a sort of faux pas, as Token (and presumably his father, etc.) were Old Wykehamists. Perhaps Stanley was the only one at the party who had gone to regular old school and suffered through regular old home life in his adolescence. He wanted both to be admired and ignored, the subject of intrigue and then disinterest. Most of the conversations he fell into, with middle-aged women in short-sleeved long-hemmed beaded gowns, concerned safe topics of a generic nature: the weather had been good this week, all things considered, but soon it would turn; what did he think of the Queens Park Rangers? (he had no opinion); any thoughts on Manchester United? (no); any thoughts on the Gipsy Moth? Stanly did not know what that was. "You're quite uninformed, young man, aren't you?" asked a viscount's fat granddaughter, her introduction inclusive of her broken engagement to the ancient-blooded Earl Danborough, whose plane had gone down near Benelux.

"I suppose," said Stanley, cautiously finishing the end of his fourth drink. It seemed not to be affecting him; perhaps it was cut with water. "Mostly I _don't care_ , darling," he drawled, turning up the effete edge to his voice.

"And quite underdressed to boot!" she added, a final stake in the heart. She then wobbled away, her rear sliding behind her like the bar car at the end of a commuter train, wider and somehow slower than the rest.

Stanley got another drink and found Token enmeshed in a chat with a fellow their own age, who introduced himself as Jason, Lord McHugh. He was balding already, and his tux made him look like something out of a BBC adaptation of the life of Gladstone. Stanley was certain he'd heard this all before. "Daddy was insistent I come down for this," he drawled. "Have to represent, you know. They're in Turks and Caicos. With the Snowdons, of course. This one is absolutely delicious, Black. Where'd you dig him up?"

There was something gay about the way he said this, a backhanded and bitchy ring to it, though nothing else about him was queer, besides the awkward fit of his tux. Stanley recoiled and said, "Magdalen," and stuck out his hand.

"Oh, never mind that." Jason took it, tentatively. "I'm up at Cambridge. Caius, actually."

"Stanley is a distinguished Waugh scholar," Token said evenly. "Be nice to him. This is all a bit of experiential archaeology for his thesis."

Stanley took a surreptitious gulp of his cocktail.

"Oh, is it?" Jason asked. "Well, that's genuine."

"Sorry," said Token. "He's a bit of a blowhard."

"Black can be a bit of a pill. So serious about things! Understandably, I suppose. Though great fun, at school. If you can believe it."

"How do you mean?" Stanley asked, casting an eye toward Token.

"Doesn't he _know_?"

"Not yet," said Token. "Though I suppose I'll take him out there this evening."

"Wouldn't that just be the scoop, for his report on this trip?"

"I am right here," said Stanley.

"He is writing an essay on Waugh, not an expose on the aristocracy."

"What's the difference," Stanley joked. He was now feeling upset and confused, the glass trembling in his hand.

As if to temper things, like he'd noticed, Jason turned his attention back to Token fully, and asked, "How's — well, I suppose it's _Nommel_ now, isn't it." There was such concern in his tone that it somehow drowned out the element of a question.

"Well, he's fine," said Token. "Silently suffering. His way of doing things."

"Terribly tragedy," Jason blustered, "he was such a fine fellow."

"He was all right," said Token.

"For Craig, I mean," Jason said. "It's too young, you know." Now, finally, he sounded concerned and sincere.

"He'll get through it." There was sadness in Token's voice. "You know, he's got Annie now, and — it's his way."

"I cannot fathom marriage, could you?"

"I don't know," said Token, "though I'd also _really_ hate to be rushed into it because my father died. I'd much prefer he lived forever."

"Then you'd never get your title, Black."

"The peerage is the responsibility, Jason. I much prefer my youth."

"You're the marrying type, though, Black. I can see it. Stability is your great interest. Everything else in ancillary."

"I don't know, really. I've not thought about myself enough to know." Turning to Stanley, he said, "This party's such a dud. You needn't stay, honestly."

"Well, where would I go?" Stanley asked.

"Anywhere you please." Token clapped his palms together and parted them, fingers splayed out. It was a weird theatrical gesture, as if he were breaking an actual spell. "I release you."

"I was here on my own accord, anyway." Stanley shrugged.

"There's a folly out there," said Token. "Shall we meet there in an hour?"

"Quite all right." Stanley put his drink down on the adjacent mantle. "Pleasure to have met you," he said to Jason. And to Token, "See you in an hour."

* * *

The folly was near to the house and ostentatiously large, larger than the follies he'd seen in the past, at Wendy's, but less innovative or inventive, and there appeared to be just the one. It was grand, a thankless colonnade, seemingly in commemoration of nothing. The sun was nearly done setting and Stanley still had _The Green Carnation_ in his pocket, this time tucked into his jacket. He sat on the wet grass with his back to the monument, reading for as long as possible. The house was not so far off, he thought, though it seemed to recede into the background the darker it grew. By the time it was fully night Stanley had to fight the tightness in his eyes to force the words off the page, their meanings richer for the struggle.

When Token appeared he was without his jacket, a stricken look on his face.

"What's the matter?" Stanley asked. He took a hand and let Token hoist him, brushing off his pants.

"Your bum's all wet." Token said this in a proprietary way, as one might tell a hunting dog he'd blood on his teeth after savaging a rabbit. It was both demeaning and erotic to Stanley, as were a great many things about his very existence. Were they going to have sex? he wondered. _He hoped._ If not, why had he come here? To meet Jason, to be insulted by fat women, to turn down the possibility of a mucky tryst in the back room of a pub in some nowhere town?

"Well." Stanley cleared his throat. "I was sitting on the grass for rather a while."

"Let's climb up."

At the top of the folly Stanley tried to stare into the windows of the manor house, to glimpse the party inside. "I don't understand any of this," he said, reaching for Token's hand. In the dark he was unable to find it, and ended up standing with his arms crossed, all of his weight on his back leg. "This way of life," he clarified. "I simply don't comprehend it. I'm trying my dear, I am, but I simply cannot fathom it, any of it."

"Oh, _Stanley_." Token sighed, long and drawn-out. "There is nothing to come to understand about it. It is all just on the surface, don't you see? No greater meaning to it." He sounded so impossibly sad! Stanley longed to grab him, to comfort him. It was so easy with Kyle, their roles so clear and precise. Kyle would become upset and Stanley would console him, and that was the cycle of it, endlessly repeated. Token bore no access points. He would never say he was sad; he would never accept that sort of kindness. It felt to Stanley like an impermeable border. At that exact moment, looking down from this folly at the manor house Token grew up in, Stanley felt a renewed sense of purpose; he would somehow cross that border. The flush of realization filled him; beyond his dissatisfied lust, it occurred him that he cared for his person. Funny that it should come upon him on this folly, his arse all damp with spring rain.

Being early spring the ground was soaked; Stanley's loafers were flooded by the time they reached the chapel. "It's not ours," Token said, heavily. "Mum and Dad aren't religious. But it came with the place, or so I am told."

It was larger than Stanley imagined it, the scale and accomplishment of the Victorian construction out of sync with the rest of the estate. To Stanley's great surprise there was no key to the door; it simply pulled open when Token grasped the handle. The interior was too dark to make out any helpful detail, but then Token snapped on the light and a yellowish illumination filled the space, crackling and hissing like many of the outmoded electrical systems Stanley had encountered at Oxford, as if it had been installed begrudgingly.

"Well," said Token, in a somewhat resigned tone, "this is it."

The most compelling feature of the space were the tombs, dozens of them, marble effigies. "These aren't my people," Token said, stepping into the space. Perhaps on account of it being an Anglican worship space, Stanley felt a certain degree of apprehension concerning the chapel, with its cluster of deceased occupants. He marveled as how easily Token moved through the space, narrating its most peculiar aspects. "This is the fifth duke of Llewych and his wife Isabel of Saintonge, she was his second duchess ... I don't know what happened to the first. She had 17 of his children, four survived, all girls. So the duchy passed to his grand-nephew, the sixth duke — this was all before the revolution, you know, so the duke of Llewych was formally considered part of the French nobility..."

"Where did you learn all of this?"

Token paused at the feet of another dead duke, this one clad in full-armor with an open book below the spurs on his feet. Inscribed in it were the French words, which Stanley made out from his combined experience in Latin and friendship with fluent Wendy, _My might is my god_.

"I don't know," said Token, who threw the question off with a shrug. "Mum and Dad just sort of knew it."

"Where did they learn it?"

"From my deceased grandfather, I suspect."

"Well, what about—"

"I don't know, Stanley," said Token, wearily. He rested a hand on the knight's marble feet, reconfiguring his weight against the boxiness of the tomb sculpture. "It's family knowledge. This line died out and my great-grandfather bought the place, or maybe his great-grandfather. It's all a wash to me. I don't know. Does it appeal to your sense of appreciation for the antiquarian?"

"That's not me," said Stanley. "I'm strictly a modernist."

"Well," said Token, "aren't we all." He walked to the steps of the altar and took a seat beside the pulpit, head in his hands. "Come sit with me," he said.

Stanley did so, resting beside Token so their thighs were touching, and nothing else. It felt intimate, a tiny bit of solace in the otherwise technically empty chapel.

"That girl back at the pub," Token began a hitch in his voice betraying the tentative nature of what he was about to say. "Have you thought on her any further today?"

"No, of course I haven't," said Stanley. "Don't be stupid."

"It occurred to me at some point that perhaps she might play a larger role between us, her or someone like her."

Horror filled Stanley's consciousness, and yet he asked, "How do you mean?"

"I mean perhaps we could invite her—"

"Are you quite serious?" Stanley shouted. "No! Absolutely not!"

"I thought as much." Token sounded disappointed. Broken, somehow.

"Why ever?" Stanley managed to choke out. "How could you even _ask_ me?"

"I don't know," said Token, "but it was stupid. Perhaps I just thought, well, you want certain things, and I do not want those things, and there are other things I want, and perhaps — perhaps, is it so stupid, to ask whether some third party might negotiate between our positions?"

"Um, literally? Yes, that's stupid! Token, I can't make it with a woman."

"Well, why couldn't you?" Token paused while Stanley gathered an answer. "I am not implying that you should or that you must, I am merely trying to understand—"

"I don't know!" said Stanley. "I don't want to, is that good enough? I don't even want to try! One mustn't just do something because he can, dear, I can't explain it!"

"Yes, of course that's good enough," said Token, "and you don't owe me any explanation. It's just that — well, I don't know. Perhaps I'd like to."

"So you're saying you _haven't_? Not ever? Or — have you? Have I left your bed and have you invited someone else into the void?" It was maddening to consider, though Stanley understood somehow that he had no right to be angry. He had no rights whatsoever.

"No, nothing like that! It's just — no one, ever? Not your friend Wendy? She's gorgeous."

"She propositioned me once," Stanley confessed, "but I turned her down."

"Are you not attracted to her?"

" _No_ ," Stanley seethed. "Not a bit."

"This is what I'm having a difficult time with," said Token. "The idea that perhaps I'll have to seal myself up, you know. To limit myself in one way. It feels unnatural to me. To limit myself. It's hard to fathom. Yet there is pressure — I am trying to be a good friend to you, Stanley, and I am failing."

"Why do you say that? No, you aren't."

There was a moment of compelling silence.

Then Token said: "On the wall you'll find a plaque with the visage of two young men. It's nothing fancy, and it's the only one. Go on. Take a gander."

Stanley rose up and began to search the walls for such a plaque. "All right…"

"Those are my brothers."

"You have brothers?" Stanley asked. He found what he was looking for, and hunched down to gain the best appreciation of it.

"Well, no, not strictly. You see, they both died before I was born. In the war, of course."

"Token!"

"Well, there you are. France, you know, somewhere like that."

Knowing he must say something, but not what precisely, Stanley tired with, "My uncle was in the war."

"Yes, I imagine he might've been."

"He survived, though." Studying the two profiles on the plaque, Stanley admired the craftsmanship, and the simplicity of the inscription: names, dates, and elegant Latin: _memorabimus, memorabuntur_.

Token stood up and walked toward Stanley, the scuff of his shoes on the marble floor slabs rhythmic and calming in some abstract way. Token put an arm around Stanley's back and rested his head on Stanley's shoulder. It was a frightening, unusual gesture, intimate and possessive. Stanley wrapped his own arm around Token's back, and they stood there clasped together for a moment, both of them staring up at the plaque.

"I know almost nothing about them, you know," Token said quietly. "Only that they died. Just like that, both gone. In the span of sixth months, my mother told me." Stanley could see that etched above them, but he said nothing as Token continued after a deep breath: "She sat me down one day, when I was just five, and told me. I have a distinct memory, actually, of this being something less than a revelation, as if it had been something I'd always known. And yet the look on her face — that was pain."

"And your father?" Stanley asked. The words came out dry and brittle.

"We've never really had a conversation about it," Token said. "I don't think they want to do as the plaque says, ironically. They were older, you know, in their early 40s. With two grown sons. Isn't my mother a wonderfully well-preserved 62 years? She doesn't look a day over 50."

Stanley found that to be roundly untrue, but he said nothing. He hated the idea of anyone criticizing his own mother, she of long-suffering endurance.

At this point Token broke away from Stanley's grasp, and rubbing his eyes, went to sit back down on the ground, near the altar. Stanley paused, wondering if he should follow. The heat of Token's embrace lingered around the muscles in his back; that would suffice, and Stanley kept his distance. "So they had you," he said, loud enough so that Token would hear.

"Of course they had me," he said, without bitterness in his tone; there was only resignation, and brutal honesty. "How does one put this, delicately? Stanley, there are remarkably few peers of, shall we say, African extraction. I'm sure they were aggrieved, and I believe the losses haunt them to this day. But I seem to owe my own existence to tragic happenstance, and the ensuing compulsion to correct course. I think my name is indicative—haven't you even wondered about that? 'Token' is hardly a usual name."

"I'd assumed it was some aristocratic affectation," said Stanley.

"It is in some abstract sense. It's like a little joke to the idea of tokenism, and meaningful in the sense that I'm considered literally a token on hope. It's sad to have to spell it out, but I feel this horrifying pressure to do my duty, as it were, to get married and start a family. Wouldn't it be a shame if this line should die out? Then this chapel would go on the market again, with some third family cramming their dead into its narrow aisles. Wouldn't that be a shame? So I'm curious, Stanley. What shall I do? Should I do what's right?"

"Well, I don't know." Stanley had the encroaching feeling that he was, in actual fact, being tested. "Token, I don't know."

"No, I am asking you, seriously," said Token. "What shall I do? Shall I embark on a life of homosexuality?"

"If that is what you want."

"It would be such an affront to my parents, even if they hardly knew at all. I am supposed to get married and have children — how could I _not_? How could I do that to them? I feel the weight of responsibility on me."

"Then do that," said Stanley, "if it's so important." His tone was laden with annoyance, perhaps a bit of disappointment. "You're putting this to me as if it's a quandary I might solve. I sympathize. To some extent I empathize, as it's not as if I don't feel the weight of my parents' disappointment. I assure you that they are very disappointed in me."

"How can you be so ambivalent about it?"

"I am not ambivalent," said Stanley. "Yet I feel like you are prompting me to participate in some ill-defined assessment by telling me something that is emotionally difficult and then proposing two solutions which are sharply juxtaposed, almost as if they are mutually exclusive and a decision to enact one must be chosen _now_. I feel awful about the situation, dear. But I couldn't dictate life steps for you. It must come from _you_ , do you see?"

"I see that you're being resistant to taking an impassioned stance."

"Well, I don't believe in hiding. I don't believe in the closet. That is my foremost passion in relation to this conversation, and isn't that a point on which we disagree?"

"So you resent me for being in the closet?"

"I've literally never said that."

"But you don't feel like there's value in privileging one's family over one's self — what if one's family _is_ one's self? What if that's the truth of one's nature? What if — what if _you_ don't understand because there is nothing at stake in your family?"

"Token—"

"What if the so-called closet _isn't_ a lie?" Token continued. "What if all choices are valid? What if a person could honestly choose either — what criterion is sufficient to inform that choice?"

There was a moment of pensive silence; Stanley and Token remained as quiet as the sepulcher that contained them.

Finally, in a weary tone, Stanley said, "I don't know."

"So you are saying you have nothing to tell me on the subject of why I shouldn't go out and get a wife."

Stanley cleared his throat. "Most people do have them."

"Most men, you mean."

"Yes," said Stanley. "I suppose that is what I mean."

On the walk back to the house it was much noisier out, between the rustling of the estate flora and fauna and the soft crunch of leather shoes against the gravel drive near the front of the crumbling façade. Sometimes their arms or hands might brush together, a total accident, but otherwise there was an unusual amount of reserve in the way in which they walked side-by-side. Stanley wondered if anyone suspected, and then he wondered why it should matter. It was not as if they'd done anything illicit in their time away. Something told Stanley they wouldn't transgress that evening at all.

"I am sorry," he said, gently, when they were closer to the house but just out of earshot. "I don't know much about grief."

"Neither do I," said Token. "I never knew them." He stopped, taking Stanley by the shoulder. "It was important to tell you, though. If you were in my social circle you would doubtless be aware, but you aren't, and so I felt — well, I wanted you to know. I felt you couldn't be denied that information if you wished to truly know _me_. So now you do, and that is everything."

"I know you're a high-quality person, though. I know you're diligent, and hard-working, and that you don't take Conrad too seriously."

"And that's all you think of me?"

"Well." Stanley felt the heat of embarrassment color his face. He crossed his arms. "I think other things, from time to time."

"Tell me sometime, then."

"Of course."

With a half-smile, Token reached for Stanley's other shoulder, squeezing it just once. He said nothing and walked up toward the front door.

* * *

After a late-March Easter, Stanley found himself in Garrison's office again, staring across a broad desk at the old man.

"Marsh," he said, but he didn't sound irritated, for once. "I trust you're getting on with your thesis on Waugh?"

"Oh, yes."

"Not finding him too vacuous?"

"Oh, no." Stanley kept his hands on his thighs, tensing them slightly.

"You seem nervous."

"Ah. Should I be?"

"No, not at all." Garrison stood up. "You should calm down." He strode to the window, which he pounded on until it slammed open. "It's nice out today, isn't it? Did you have a nice month off?"

"Oh. Ah, yes, I did." Stanley hoped Garrison wouldn't know he was lying. The truth was that Stanley was still reeling from week of his vacation in London, with Token one weekend and Kyle the next. It was a whirlwind, late evenings (as late as 11) drinking at pubs, and lazy afternoon strolls along the river, teas at Token's parents' house in the city, then they'd meet Wendy for a drink and window-shop in Knightsbridge. Wendy had taken Stanley down the Kings' Road, where he'd marveled at the mix of young women in high skirts and fussy old men in wool suits in the rain. Mid-week Stanley got in a taxi with his trunk and went up to Islington, where Kyle's family welcomed him with open arms, despite the air of continued mourning in the house.

"Eric's on some miserable jaunt to Rome with his mother and her boyfriend," Kyle informed Stanley, tugging him up the stairs by the arm. "Oh, the housekeeper will get your trunk, you know, why'd you bring such a big one? Anyway, so, I'm dreadfully lonely, Mommy and Daddy are still so torn up over things! It's no better than it was at Christmas. You're lucky you've spent some time with human beings. I'm dying to do a turn."

But as much as he wanted to, Stanley felt obliged to decline.

It had led to the most splendid row, with Kyle accusing Stanley of not finding him attractive. "Is it my lip?" he wailed. "Or is it someone else?"

Stanley was horrified. "I find you very attractive," he said, placid. "It's not your lip."

"Is it someone else?"

"Does Eric count as someone else?"

"No," Kyle said bitterly.

"Oh, you're so done with him, then?"

"Well, he's not here right now! He's not here when I _need_ him."

"That's fine, then," said Stanley, "but if you haven't sworn him off, I remain reluctant to cross him."

"Why not?" Kyle moaned. "He deserves it! He deserves it for abandoning me."

" _Abandoning you_?" Stanley seethed. "Kyle, he split your bloody lip open! Literally, actually!"

"Maybe I deserved it," Kyle wept.

"Of course you bloody didn't! But I'm not going to make it with you to get back at some violent arsehole who socked you in the face. Or is it just that you're horny and I'm the only one around? Do you even know what you want?"

"I just want you to fuck me right now," Kyle cried, "that's all I want."

At another point, even a few months prior, Stanley might have said, "Well, let's have at it, then." He was hard-up to fuck something, anything beside his own hand. For a moment he felt actual anger toward Token, in the sense of, how dare he consider himself too noble, or whatever, to let Stanley have the sort of sex he wanted? But then Stanley thought back on his recent trip to Llewych, and decided with finality that he must commit to Token, yes, that was what he must do. Here was someone who was sad, who had a great many pressures on him; the very least Stanley could do would be to avoid contributing pressure of his own. In what sense sex with Kyle might contribute pressure, Stanley wasn't certain, but something about it was a little cease-and-desist order impressed upon his heart. Stanley knew nothing about how to carry on in a relationship, but he knew having sex with Kyle now would be in error.

It wasn't just that, though. It was too many things, the specter of Eric and his ownership of Kyle fore among them. Kyle then ordered Stanley out of his room, leaving Stanley to go downstairs himself. He found the key to the garden and sat there, in the back of the house, smoking on the steps. It was too early in spring for a full planting, but he felt comforted by the dark, cloistered feeling of that backyard, staring deep into it as if it physically continued on forever. That wasn't the case, but Stanley was terrified to go back inside to dig in his trunk for a book. There came a moment when he suspected Kyle might have come up to the back door to stare at Stanley through the glass, but Stanley did not turn around. He sat out there until well after nightfall, and when he went upstairs to bed, Kyle was asleep already. He did not feel at ease getting under the covers with Kyle there, lest there develop a misunderstanding between them about the sex they couldn't enjoy. So Stanley took a pillow from the bed — Kyle was sprawling in the middle of it, a pillow free between his open legs on top of the quilt — and slept on the floor.

They'd repeat this arrangement for the balance of Stanley's stay. Kyle remained bitter and hostile. "I haven't asked you to go because I need someone to accompany me to the opera, et cetera," he tossed off over breakfast.

"Well, that's generous."

"So don't you dare leave!" Kyle added.

Trapped there, Stanley escorted Kyle on the most repetitious and thankless of errands. They went to the kosher butcher and bought hens for Kyle's mother to roast for a future dinner; they went to the tailor to have Kyle's new trousers mended; they delivered a file of legal documents to a courier for Kyle's father. On Saturday they saw a dress-rehearsal matinee with Wendy, whose mother had a box. It was _De Rosenkavalier_. Kyle wept through it ("This is a comedy," Wendy hissed at him); afterward he pronounced it distasteful.

"Was it the sapphic bit?" Wendy asked.

"The whole German bit mostly," Kyle snapped.

"Sounds familiar," she said.

"I don't owe you any explanation," said Kyle. "You wouldn't understand."

"Oh, _wouldn't_ I?" She shrugged at Stanley, as if they shared some bank of information that might make this retort relevant. But as Stanley just gave her a ceaseless inquiring look, she shrugged again and waved it away with an, "Oh, forget it!"

As they were nearish to the Ritz they stopped in for a drink at the Rivoli. Kyle was pointedly trying to be nasty, sucking his teeth and gesturing to the extent that she asked him to stop. "I appreciate that you are excited about _De Rosenkavalier_ ," she said, "but it's not appropriate for public."

They had never really been friends, and Stanley had always regretted it. Kyle was aggressive where Wendy was solicitous, and vice-versa. Perhaps if Stanley had a basic interest in mediation, it would have been feasible, but he was repelled by their squabbling and disinterested in inserting himself deeply enough to make up for their mutual ill-will. It was too bad, because they shared common interests: in French culture, in opera, in cultivating a personal aesthetic through meticulous self-design. It was interesting to Stanley how, on Wendy, these traits painted her as weakly aristocratic and benign, while the very same set of affectations made Kyle look like a vicious old queen. At least he hadn't worn makeup, Stanley figured, though while they fought, he fantasized about lipstick and blush smearing against his face and Kyle drunkenly kissing him. Stanley longed for that.

"Didn't you notice my lip?" Kyle asked. "You haven't said anything."

"Yes," she said, "precisely."

"I'm an old hag now. Who's going to want me like this?"

"You see, that's the question I ask myself," she replied, "more often than not."

"Oh, Wendy, heartface, don't worry. Someone will marry you for your money."

"I should say the same to you."

"Yes, well, unfortunately, I'm afraid I wouldn't even know what to _do_ with that."

"The woman, you mean? Or the money? Because if it's the former, I assume you'd just belittle her into a corner after she treated you to the opera, isn't that right?"

"Calm down, my dear, it was only a _dress rehearsal_."

Tired of their cattiness, and profoundly disappointed in Wendy's insistence on feeding into Kyle's worst qualities, Stanley begged off and walked up to Soho Square, leaving Kyle to go home to bid farewell to the Sabbath, and Wendy for a trip to the Lansdowne for dinner with her parents. After putting Wendy in a cab and before parting, Kyle said to Stanley, "I'd love to go to the Bucky with you and have some excitement, but I'm afraid it might impede your chances. Also, I am sure Mommy and Daddy want to see me, so they can propose the same battery of questions concerning my face and how it became ruined, exactly."

"Oh, it is not _ruined_ , and who said I was looking?"

Kyle did not address either sentiment. He merely shrugged and said, "If I don't get shagged soon I'll _really_ begin to despair."

"Oh, please don't despair." Placing a hand on Kyle's shoulder Stanley gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. "I'll be home this evening."

"Home? You mean my home," said Kyle. "As though we live together or something."

"I am using it very figuratively." Stanley blushed.

"Of course, of course. Fetch me a cab, my dear, won't you?" And Kyle stood back on the pavement in his burgundy trousers and boxy black fur-trimmed coat, scowling as though he thought he wasn't being watched. When Stanley held the cab door open, though, he got a quick look at Kyle's expression in the instant before it changed, softening, turning from disgusted to miserable. He said nothing as he got into the cab, and Stanley heard him quip, "Yes, hello, I'm headed up to Islington, you may take Upper Street—" and that was it.

Choosing not to go to the Bucky, Stanley sat in Soho Square with the newspaper, watching men of all types slip through the park on their ways to various ventures, past the Tudor-revival structure at the center of the garden. Once, two summers ago, Kyle had whispered in Stanley's ear that the little hut was a cottage, and that men did unspeakable things in there. Now Stanley got up and, though the sky was turning dark and the lamps had come on, he tried to gain access to the rumored facility inside. There was a door but it was well locked, and Stanley discerned no activity inside anyway. Disappointed, he filtered around Soho for a time, enjoying the queens who came out to be seen, their 1920s postures the clearest and most-shared trait that they all belonged to this secret little club. Like the Tudor hut one had to be alerted to the presence of a secret to begin to unlock its finer points, yet Stanley had found no way inside the structure, much as he had felt stupid trying to walk forward through his hips like that, holding a cigarette a foot ahead and gesturing with a bent pinky. In a bookstore soon to close for the evening an old man with a rather outdated wool hat followed him around the periodicals until Stanley paused and said, "May I help you?" The chap simpered and said no and disappeared. Back outside it had seemingly dropped five degrees, and Stanley crossed over the main road to stroll up through Fitzrovia en route to the Goodge Street station. Stepping off Tottenham Court Road and toward the ticket counter, his heart broke a little, missing the glimmer of the ancient stones in anachronistic gaslight after a misty, humid day.

If it were possible to be in love with a city and all of its people and the minerals in its buildings and the electricity that burned there through the night, Stanley figured, he might be in love with this place. Just a bit. But the very notion was overly romantic and consciously foolish. He silently chided himself for it as he swayed roughly on the balls of his feet as the train rolled northward. He said nothing about it to Kyle, and concealed that he had deliberately taken an inconvenient route home merely to gawk at men on the train.

* * *

Having come to the portion of his studies that most heavily concerned typing and retyping his last third-year manuscript, Stanley relished the chance to interface with his work on a critical level. Garrison had praised it and ripped it apart and praised it and ripped it apart so many times that it took real effort, and a full bottle of whisky, to be both honest about and proud of his analysis. It was good undergraduate work, or would be when it was finished, and he was proud of how good it was but honest that he was still, after all this, an undergraduate. "I am curious to see what you turn in, though, in the end," Garrison had said at the end of their last meeting. The truth was, part of Stanley's heart wasn't in this, and he was trying to discern where it might be. Token had already announced his intention to go down, and in some small measure Stanley wondered if he mightn't follow.

But then, Stanley had no illusions, not even small ones, that following Token to London might result in something productive, not in the sense that a traditional courtship might have yielded an engagement. Token intended to begin a law course at King's College, a second undergraduate degree; he swore he did not know what he would do with it, but had stated simply to Stanley one evening, "I mean to be productive." Meanwhile, he focused on finishing his work on Conrad, a draft of which Stanley had received to edit, tied with a red ribbon so the papers didn't go flying when a draft blew in. In relation to Craig, whose attentions to finishing the degree seemed to have petered out entirely in recent months, Token's determination was endearing and ennobling, to Stanley. He wanted to tell Kyle all about it, but that would have meant telling Kyle about the year-long secret relationship Stanley had tried, perhaps badly, to conceal. Then they might have had to be honest with each other, and Stanley would have had to confess that maybe the only thing keeping Stanley at Oxford for another year was Kyle.

Kyle had a bad habit of forcing his way into Stanley's evenings when Stanley himself intended only to work, and this evening was no exception. The rapping on the door was faint under the clack of the typewriter, but once Stanley paused for a drink of whisky he heard it. "Coming," he said, screwing the cap back on the bottle. He hadn't bothered with a glass.

What Stanley saw when he opened the door was shocking: Kyle's face was swelling, red as a piece of raw meat, eyes blackened and lip split open a second time. Stanley clutched at the collar of his polo and yanked Kyle in by the sleeve of his wide-necked jumper. It had been raining all night and it was raining harder now; having come over from his building Kyle's hair was frizzy and matted, a victim of the rain. And it was flecked, in parts, with blood. It took a moment of silent examination to see that it was coming from his nose, _pouring_ from his nose, blood and snot and actual tears smeared everywhere.

Not knowing what to say, Stanley shut the door.

"Well," Kyle tried. It came out very wet and very unclear. "I think we've broken up."

Quietly, Stanley asked, "You and Eric?"

"Yeh," said Kyle, unable to get the whole word out. "I think m'lip's split agin."

"Are your teeth broken?"

Kyle shook his head. "I don'thin so."

"Jesus," Stanley whispered. He pulled Kyle into the bedroom, helping him down onto the bed. "I don't know what to do."

"Please think of something," Kyle tried to say.

Stanley fell onto the bed and tried to get a good look at Kyle's face. "Do you want a Panadol? Or some water?"

"I dunno."

It was only then that Stanley noticed Kyle was bare-legged, wearing only a pair of briefs and one soaked sock. "I'll, um — wait here."

Back into the small seating area, Stanley fell onto a seat and rubbed his face vigorously, trying to think. His mind was blank with fear, unable to come up with anything. He had to do _something_ , he had to — would Token know what to do? No, surely not, Token did not deserve to become wrapped up in this. Stanley would kill Eric, he would absolutely slaughter him. He would — no, it wasn't productive to worry about it now. He paced back and forth, on the verge of some sort of anxiety episode, not sure what to do but knowing that poor Kyle was sitting on the bed, bleeding out of his nose and mouth, waiting for Stanley to introduce a solution that would make this go away.

He went back into the bedroom, the spooky red light of a lava lamp burning onto the wall against his dresser, the glint of the stained glass shade that hung over a mirror blinding if one caught it at the wrong angle. Stanley turned the lamp away and sat back down at the foot of his bed. He'd had sex here with Token for the first time, he thought inappropriately, Token had clumsily fucked him in the arse right here for the first time many months ago. Stanley grabbed Kyle's hand and Kyle pulled it against his chest. He was balancing against the wall.

"Kyle." It came out hoarse. "I'm going to call an ambulance."

"No," Kyle insisted. "Please fix it."

"I can't fix it, Kyle. I think your nose is broken."

"Just fix it, Stanley, please." It was coming out garbled. "I can't, I can't—"

"I think your nose is broken." Stanley was trying not to betray Kyle with alarm, but it was difficult not to let onto the immensity of this. "I cannot set your nose. It's still bleeding. If you keep bleeding you'll pass out."

"Just get a towel," said Kyle. "Please."

"I don't think—"

"Please, _please_." This was just begging.

"You can't just bleed to death on my bed!" Stanley snapped. He immediately regretted it. "All right, I'm sorry. But I have to call, all right? I'm not a fucking doctor, Kyle, I can't fix this!"

"Yes you can, Stanley, please, my parents, my — please, I can't, you can't—"

Stanley let Kyle roll his head into the clean, white shoulder of the polo while the phone rang. Kyle was actually crying now. Stanley hoped the operator on the other side of the line heard every sodden gasp of it.

"Well," Stanley said, hanging up the phone. "They are on their way."

"I don't want to go to prison," Kyle cried.

"No one's going to prison," said Stanley. Of course, it occurred to him even as he said it that someone _should_ go to prison, and yet, ironically, that person almost certainly wouldn't. There was, of course, a relative likelihood that Kyle might go to prison if he fingered Eric as the cause of this, because then the whole thing would come out. But what was Stanley supposed to do? He couldn't leave Kyle bleeding on the bed. Stanley kept Kyle from reclining, though he professed to be tired; Kyle might have had a concussion, or he might swallow some blood. Any number of things could have happened, Stanley thought; any number of things might happen now that this had come to pass. It did occur to Stanley that Kyle's father was a lawyer, so perhaps that would be enough to mend any future legal scrapes. But then Stanley realized that he had a half-naked, bleeding boy in his arms, and that an ambulance was coming. Perhaps he should get Kyle a pair of trousers.

"It's going to be all right," he said, slipping off of the bed and stumbling toward his dresser. He found a pair of black slacks that would probably fit Kyle, and brought them over to the bed. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will be."

"How d'you know?"

Of course, Stanley didn't know, but he gently lifted one of Kyle's feet so that he could roll a trouser leg up toward Kyle's knee. "I just assume Eric wouldn't want you in jail, especially seeing as a trial of any sort would expose all of his nasty business. It's very Wildean, isn't it, and as an English boy he surely must know that."

"He's German," said Kyle.

"I mean English language — studies," said Stanley. "And anyway — the other leg, darling, come on. Yes, that's it. Only so many bad things can happen to a person."

"This's awful," Kyle wept. "It hurts very badly."

"Shhh, that's it. Let me button these" — ironic, since all Stanley had ever wanted was to get Kyle's trousers _off_ — "and there, see? It looks much less suspect now. How did this happen to you? What shall we tell them at A and E?"

"He pushed me into a doorframe."

"What if you fell down the stairs?" Stanley asked.

"Whatever." Kyle started crying: "My fucking face!"

"I know, darling, I know. Shhh." Stanley wished he had some ice, but he hadn't anything like that. Now Kyle's face was swollen like a boxer's, actually becoming much worse. There was blood on very nearly everything, including Stanley's hands and his white shirt, the bedspread and the wall. "Shall we find you some shoes? I know it's awfully déclassé, but you could borrow a pair of my plimsolls, if you like." Stanley had two pairs, neither of which he thought would fit Kyle; they would probably be a size or two large.

"If this is what happens," Kyle cried, "what's the point?"

Such an amorphous question, and yet Stanley looked down on the boy he loved, crying and bleeding and wet from the rain. Stanley had loved him for going on three years now. "Eric is — there aren't enough words for him. But when you find a good one, things should right themselves. It's worth waiting for. I don't know much, but I know that."

"And what then?" Kyle asked, wetly.

No matter how deeply he looked into his soul, Stanley had never been able to come up with an answer for _that_.

"Thought not." Kyle's head knocked into the wall and he cried for another five minutes. Then, the ambulance came.

* * *

In the end, this was what Stanley had learned at university: Life could be fun. And dangerous, and frightening, and terribly uncertain. In his squalid old bedroom in his parents' old row house, Stanley had always felt cosseted, restless, and empty. Then on some cloudy Oxford Saturday he'd stumbled into the cloister for a fag and met Kyle Broflovski. Stanley had liked boys; he had known boys at school; he had taken the time to fuck one or two of them, out of some sort of lascivious compulsion. But before meeting Kyle, Stanley had never had fun with a boy. Or really at all. He spent time with Kyle because he wanted to, because for three very long, heady years it had been all cigarettes on the roof at midnight and bottle after bottle of the palest cava, washing down mouthfuls of salmon salad on stale bread and, frankly, mouthfuls of come, of spit, of the taste of stale smoke after a night smoking on the rooftop. Mouthfuls of treacherous gossip, braggadocio, thinly veiled euphemisms and back-alley cants. Life was good; life was lovely.

Life was ending.

Stanley had sat with Kyle for as long as he could manage, the black-violet swell of his face increasingly unbearable. Yet Stanley forced himself to stay put, Kyle's still hand in his trembling grasp, cotton wool stuffed up his nose, stained with brown, dry blood. Here was the most adult moment of their lives, and it was no fun whatsoever.

Around dawn a mousy nurse came with a sedative and a glass of water; both were in paper cups on a cold metal tray. It clanked when she set it down near the bed, pulling back the partition that would keep them hidden from the rest of the emergency department. She must not have been old, the nurse, given her sunny disposition and unlined face, but she wore thick nude-colored stockings with black patent shoes, and she had the just-kempt look of someone biding her time. Stanley liked her.

She handed the paper cup to Kyle, saying, "There you go, love. Take this. You'll get some rest, then."

"I hope I never wake up," said Kyle.

She had no patience for _that_. "Don't be sour," she said, "it's only a broken nose."

"And a lip," Stanley added.

"Yes, I guess that's right." She handed Kyle the little paper cup with water, and after he had swallowed it, she put on a pair of latex gloves and looked at it, swollen and pierced where her colleague on the earlier shift had injected it with something — an analgesic or antibiotics, Stanley hadn't caught. He hadn't been allowed to sit with Kyle then. "You know what's curious about it," she said, "is that it looks like this has happened all before, and someone stitched it up already." She let go of Kyle's lip and peeled off the gloves. "You're a lucky boy, to have a friend to bring you in. You have to watch where you're going in the future, love, or you'll put out an eye."

"Yes," said Kyle, "I'll be more careful in the future."

"And what about you?" Stanley asked her.

"What about me? This is my last shift this week. Then I'm headed to St. Ives for a holiday weekend."

"That'll be lovely," said Stanley. "I've never been."

"Oh, we go every year," she said, "my old man and I." At this she made a conscious gesture, tipping her left hand toward him so he could catch a glimpse of her ring, lest he try to ask her out. She was picking up little bits of trash, and then began to readjust Kyle's bed so he could sleep, cranking it with great effort. Stanley never noticed these things, what women did or what they were wearing. "Where'd you get these old stitches?" she asked Kyle.

"Oh," he said, growing sleepy. "Why, are they horrible?"

"Well, they look like they came out badly, that's all. They didn't do it here, did they?"

"No," said Kyle, sounding as if in a daze, "not here."

"Just noticing," she said.

"Do you sew a lot of stitches?" Stanley asked.

"No." She laughed, briskly. "Came this close to being a surgeon!" She made a little gesture with his finger and thumb, the finger with the wedding band splayed out again. "Well, rest up. We'll take good care of your friend. We'll watch him until this evening and let him go, I imagine. Will you pick him up, or is there a parent, a girlfriend—?"

"Just me."

"Well, he's lucky he has a friend who'll look after him. Young men can be so reckless."

"Yes," said Stanley. "They can, I'm sure."

Kyle was soon out cold, his sleep peppered with the lull of low-grade snoring. Then Stanley became thirsty, and got a weak tea from the cafeteria. It tided him over just long enough that it was properly the next day, and his friendly nurse has disappeared, perhaps off to Cornwall. Now Stanley and hungry and exhausted, in multiple senses, and Kyle was asleep. He left a note:

_Stepped out to preserve my sanity. Will return. — SM_

* * *

 

Over a double-portion of pricey whisky Stanley dwelt for some time. He knew he should eat, especially as it was midday and he'd not eaten anything since dinner, but the thought of food was unbearable. The bloodstains on his trousers and shirt were oxidizing, turning a rusty brownish, hardening as they dried. Stanley was going to need new trousers, he knew; these were ruined. It was a good batch, the barkeep had promised him, when Stanley had ordered his drink; he could barely taste it.

"I knew I'd find you here."

It was impossible to believe that Eric had come, but here he was, looming over Stanley in his rower's whites, as if the previous night's actions meant nothing to him. Scowling, Stanley turned away.

"Sitting in the pub drowning your sorrows, not even half past noon. At first I thought you might come after me, but you don't have the bollocks for that. So I figured I'd come. Do you the favor."

Anger burned through Stanley so brightly that he became incapacitated, unable to even look at him.

"Ey, not going to take a swing at me?"

Stanley was quiet, staring deeply into the amber reflection that glanced up at him from his glass of whisky. "No. I'm not. What would it do?"

At this, Eric laughed. It wasn't a joyous laugh, but one of ironic relief. Stanley looked up to see Eric occupying the spot across from him, on the cushy velveteen banquette. It gasped a little moan as Eric sank into it, his broad chest and uniform brown hair with its center part betraying just how sick he looked. It reminded Stanley of the way he'd felt following his first lone tutorial, with Garrison, in that rainy October of 1964. Yet Eric merely set his beer down and, in contraction with his clear nerves, said, "Who cares what it would do? An actual man would thrash me. I know you'd like to."

"That wouldn't make me much better than you, would it?"

"Again, Marsh, there's your problem. _Who cares_?"

"Well," said Stanley, "I care."

"Don't tell me it's not what the Jew would want."

Now, that made Stanley angry. "Well, maybe that's my job, isn't it, as his best friend? To protect him from what he wants? Well, I've been trying, Eric. And it's impossible. He wants his own destruction, all right, _you broke his fucking nose_."

A slight change, but Stanley could have sworn he saw Eric turn one shade paler. "Oh, did I?"

" _You know you did, you great big fat arse!_ "

"Ey! I'm not fat, I'm _athletic_."

"Oh, sod your athleticism," said Stanley. "Why do you think I want to _fight_ you? I just want to be left alone for a bit."

"All right," said Eric, some amusement in his voice. "Have it your way, I guess." He took a step away, and while Stanley sighed in relief, Eric had spun around again before the last breath of wind had passed Stanley's lips. "You know what your problem is, Marsh?"

"Name just one. I can't set a broken nose?"

"No. Let's be honest, though, I must have done that Jewess a right favor. There was only room for improvement in that bloody great nose of hers. … _No_ , Marsh, your problem is that you actually _believe_ he didn't deserve it, that nothing your beloved Kyle would have done might have warranted my fist in his mouth."

"Fuck you!" Stanley seethed hopping to his feet.

Eric spread his arms. "Well, I'm perfectly open to that, if you insist."

"Get out of my sight."

"These clichés are disappointing. I expected better from a fledgling poetess. I just want you to know — he's not so innocent. That's why I came down here. I'm not looking for a fight. I just wanted to twist the knife. Kyle and me, we're even now. It's over."

"Nothing he did to you could ever be worthy of that! It's not even that nose that's the issue, Eric, isn't it, it's that he's got no recourse!"

"Well, why d'you assume he's the one who deserves recourse? How do you know I wasn't serving up my own recourse? It's very unfair of you to just assume."

"How could anything he did to you possibly equal _that_?" Stanley felt he might cry. "As if it were just the one thing, and not a series of things, a series of treatments—"

"Treatments, _that's rich_ , as if you know what went on between us, as if he ever told you anything but the spiteful little Jew-lies he wore to needle away at you. Do you know what sort of barmy rubbish I had to read to make it to the end of this sodding course, Marsh? I had to read Icelandic sagas. I had to write an exam second year on the bloody talion. It was out of alignment and I reset it, that's all. Eye for an eye. Now we're equal."

"How could you ever possibly be _equal_?" Stanley gasped. "Are you listening to yourself? You're immense and he isn't. You're a rower and he isn't. You're never going to be convicted, and he might!"

"Well, I hadn't thought to go to Betty Bracelets," said Eric, "but the idea's not half-bad."

Stanley lunged forward and drew back his fist, seizing Eric by the collar of his shirt, shouting, "If you bloody well do—!"

A smile lit up Eric's face. "Well? Are you going to fucking do it?"

Stanley's grip on Eric's shirt loosened.

Eric stumbled away, sputtering, brushing at himself and picking at his clothing. But then, he straightened out, and plastered a silly look on his face. "Well," he said, "thought not."

" _Get out._ "

"Fine!" Eric exclaimed. "That's fine!" He backed away slowly, and then he turned to scramble out.

"Moron," Stanley cried, sitting back down. "Bloody great fuck." He finished his whisky in one taxing mouthful.

* * *

At a difficult lunch on an early Tuesday afternoon, Kyle picked at his bacon-tomato sandwich with mayo and delivered a crushing blow to the promise of Stan's future happiness: he had decided to postpone his education indefinitely and go down at the end of the term.

"At the end of the term?" Stanley asked, teaspoon falling from his grip to clatter against the laminate tabletop. "But, darling, that is _soon_."

"Yes," said Kyle, "very soon." His nose was bandaged, the bruises obscured and fading around its peripheries. He had gotten it set over the weekend by a London surgeon, and Stanley both dreaded and longed to see what horror was hidden underneath its adhesive concealment. "I love Blake," he said slowly, as if Blake were some chap he'd gone home with just recently. "I would have given my whole life away to that man. But, what am I to do? I can't stay here, Stanley. It's too much for me to bear."

"Well, Eric is leaving, so you needn't leave on his account. Think of what you could do, for Blake and for yourself."

"You say that as if I owe everything to Blake and nothing to myself." Kyle's voice tightened. "I can't stay here. I can do a degree on William Blake at nearly any place in the country with a first in English. If that's what I want to do. I'm not so sure it is what I want to do, anymore. My father could get me a job, I believe. A good one. I've considered asking — that is, if I decide not to do the degree. In either case, I can't stay _here_."

Stanley's heart leapt at the reality of a time without Kyle. It pained him to think that Kyle, erudite and yet beautiful like a consuming fire, might not want to devote his life to a Romantic poet. Kyle, who moved like an image from Blake, his hair as if painted by some forgotten master's brush. Who else could make sense of such passions and ignominies, the very soul of art? "Well," Stanley said, his words dry. "I suppose you must do what is best."

"Yes, that's true. I must." It was a wry sort of agreement, and Kyle sealed it with a chaste kiss. He said, "Ow," pressing three fingers to the side of the pale, mummiform ridge that his nose had become. The grit of it still lingered on Stanley's cheek. "Well, I'm off to make sense of my exams, I suppose. Please telephone." Kyle took Stanley's expression quite seriously then: "It's not goodbye."

"Oh. Yes, I know. Of course not." Another cordial peck on the cheek, and they parted.

It felt strange to Stanley that Kyle should be going down. He had spent his whole life in Oxford unaware of Kyle's very existence, and now Stanley dragged himself back up toward Magdalen with the weight of Kyle's absence. He should have said something, berating himself. "Please stay," he might have said, "for I cannot do it without you." Instead, Stanley collapsed into bed, fully intending to read some of _The Loved One_. He awoke an hour later with the book splayed on his chest, rising and falling.

Stanley went to mass that evening at Christ Church. It was at such a choral performance that he had, years ago now, met the Lady Wendy Testaburger. Were some of these the same boys singing? Stanley let the performance cascade and ascend, relishing the ideal match between the cathedral architecture and the vocal arrangement. Wendy was going down, too. They all were. At least there was this, Stanley figured. There was this and there was the promise of rejoining Kyle in a year's time. There would be weekends at Llewych with Token, Stanley hoped, the fodder for comedies of manners and slim volumes on the juxtaposition of grandiosity with ruin from the outsider's perspective. As the concert receded and the audience applauded, Stanley had talked himself into optimism, somehow. He'd been so concerned with Kyle, of course, recently. Now his thoughts turned to Token. He considered going up to New College, to see if Token was in, but it was too near the end of term, his obligations already put off too often for Kyle's sake. Stanley headed home.

Coincidentally, it was walking back to Magdalen that he ran into, of all people, Craig Tucker.

"Marsh," he said, in that formidable monotone. "Where's your charge? I'd heard you were busy playing nursemaid."

"You heard about that?" Stanley asked. He crossed his arms in the road, feeling childish while Craig stood with his hands folded neatly together. They slid into the pockets of his out-of-season gray suit.

"Indirectly," said Craig. "Your friend _Marjorine_ told Clyde."

"I didn't realize they still spoke."

"I believe they maintain a certain sort of correspondence." He shrugged. "One might call it speaking. I don't understand it, myself."

Stanley looked him up and down. Surely Craig had had sex with _someone_ , if not Clyde. "When's the wedding?" he asked, trying to be both cordial and sharp.

"Oh, I don't think that's been decided yet," he said. "Since it's such a recent development, you know."

"That seems off. Token said he went with you to Monaco back at the break."

"Oh, you meant _my_ wedding," said Craig. " _I_ meant Black."

"Token's not getting married," said Stanley.

"Well." Craig seemed taken aback. He bristled. "I'm sorry, actually." Stanley could see his hands clench in his pockets. "He is, though."

"No—"

"Yes, to a co-ed," said Craig. "A Lady Wendy Testaburger. She's a—"

Stanley shouted, "Surely not!" He was surprised to hear it come out like that, his mind reeling.

"I am really _very_ sure," said Craig. "Isn't she a friend of yours?"

"Well, yes, I did think so!"

"What's the matter with you?" Craig asked. "No. Please don't answer. You know it's nothing to do with you, of course. You must know that?"

"I really _don't_ have time for this!" Something forced him to pause, to say, "Well, Craig—"

"Your _grace_."

"It was — well, I couldn't say it's been pleasant." Turning on his heels, Stanley fled back to college at top speed.

* * *

Curious enough, Stanley's first impulse was to call Kyle, to head straight to Kyle's rooms. Though they'd just seen each other at lunch, Stanley suddenly longed for Kyle's presence, for the camaraderie he might have offered. It was the sort of news one wished to spread around, to discuss first. But that would have been disastrous. Kyle didn't even _know_ about Token. The impact — to let everything come spilling out now was ill-advised. No, he was going to have to consult the source. Perhaps Craig was mistaken; perhaps Token would clarify. Stanley needed some light, but not too much. He did something he rarely did and lit a candle.

Stanley tried the telephone, but it didn't ring twice before he slammed the handset into the receiver. He couldn't do this. He began pacing. His room was messy and crowded, but he had to walk the length of it, all five meters, before turning around and walking to the other side. Stanley trampled on papers and kicked a book out of the way. What was it? A leather-bound copy of _Middlemarch_. This entire thing was unbearable. Stanley wasn't certain if he should try again, or wait for Token to ring _him_. Craig had to have told him, be en route to telling him. Two could play at that game, Stanley figured. He snuffed out the wick of his languidly dripping candle between his thumb and forefinger; the moment when flame licked his fingers stung, but then the light was extinguished and there was no more feeling, just black soot on his skin. Grabbing his coat and keys, Stanley slammed the door shut and ran down to Broad Street.

"Hullo." Token opened the door calm and collected. "Here to discuss Conrad? Or something else? You're all flushed, dear."

"Something else!" Stanley gasped. "You're leaving me for my girlfriend?"

"What?" Token's mouth dropped open and he said, "God, _no_ , nothing like that. Why, was there a miscommunication?" He pulled Stanley over the threshold, using his socked toes to nudge the door shut.

"So it's not true, then." Stanley continued his pacing in Token's room, careful this time not to step on any papers, although this was easier because Token was neat and most of his papers were in binders on the shelves.

"What's not true?" Token poured a glass of something. Stocky bottle — madeira? He offered it to Stanley.

"I'm not thirsty. You're not leaving me for Wendy?"

"No." Token tightened the cap on the madeira bottle and took a sip from the glass he'd poured. "Why would I do a thing like that?"

"Well, why would Craig say a thing like that?" Stanley asked. He felt calmer now, falling into an ancient, overstuffed armchair.

"Oh, Craig would be to blame for this. I thought I'd told him not to tell you," Token said, settling onto the ottoman, "that we'd talk about it later — I wanted to tell you."

"Tell me what? Jesus, Token, I can't take this, it's enough already—"

"That we've agreed to marry. Wendy and me."

Everything stopped, for a moment, the air going out of the room.

Then Stanley gasped, "What? Why?"

"But I'm _not_ leaving you. Did he say that? It's wrong, we both agreed—"

"You _what_?"

"Stanley, calm down—"

"Calm down about what? You, you're — you're going to get married? To Wendy?"

"Yes." A look of realization settled on Token's face. "No one was supposed to tell you, you know, _I_ wanted to tell you. Because obviously there _has_ been a miscommunication. But you've been so absent lately, I haven't had a chance. This hardly means the end of you and me. I mean, it doesn't at all."

"But how couldn't it?"

"Because." Token took another sip of madeira. "Are you _sure_ you don't want a glass."

"I'm not bloody thirsty!"

"I thought you'd understand…"

"Understand what?" Stanley asked. "That you've gone ahead and decided to marry, to become engaged to marry _my_ friend, my friend to whom I introduced you—"

"You don't understand at all," Token said.

Stanley ignored him. "—and you expect me to continue to fuck you?"

"It's not like that." Token finished the drink and set his glass on the floor. "It's not like that, I promise."

"How isn't it like that? You want to be a married man, fucking a man on the side? How is it not like that? Which nuance am I failing to grasp? Any time, Viscount, any time you wish to _elucidate_ for me—"

"I wish you wouldn't call me 'Viscount,' " Token mumbled.

"Well, I wish you wouldn't run off and get fucking married!" Stanley yelled.

"I'm sorry." Token sounded sincere. With his hands clasped and his eyes meeting Stanley's, he looked it. But there was something so discordant about how he looked, how he spoke, what he said — and his actions. "There's something I can't control. A role I was born into. I can't imagine you don't understand what _that's_ like. And I love you, Stanley. But I can't build my life out of loving you, can I?" He clasped Stanley's hand, waiting for an answer.

Stanley drew his hand away, crossing his arms and sinking back into his chair. "D'you love her?" he mumbled, looking away.

Token thought for a moment. These words had to be perfect. He cleared his throat. He said, "Yes, well … I mean, no, not in the way I love you." He waited for a moment, for any sort of response. When none was forthcoming, Token continued: "It's a marriage of convenience, Stanley. That's all. I'd be lying if I told you it didn't mean anything. I'd be heartless if it didn't mean _something_. But it doesn't mean _everything_ , do you know?

"No."

Now Token sat back, crossed his arms, and said, "I mean it, I love you. I'm in love with you and I've never been in love with anyone before. Doesn't that count for something? We don't have to stop … _being_ together, not really. If you just say something—"

"There's nothing to say." Stanley uncrossed his arms, pushed himself out of the chair, and, standing over Token, straightened out his jacket. "Maybe I'm not the best man in Britain. I'm probably not even the best man in this bedsit. But I'm better than some married aristocrat's fucktoy, all right."

"I know. I know you are."

"Then thanks for nothing, Viscount. "

* * *

Nighttime was the worst for Stanley, with the cheers of celebratory grads down the hall, and in the cloister, and really everywhere in the college. He heard running on old stones, clicking typewriter keys, clinking glasses, the hissing of the gas torches, the brief moans of his neighbors' nightly triumphs. Stanley lingered in his sitting room in his old armchair, feet on the table, arms hugging his legs. He'd been through so many bottles of rye that he'd used them to line the tops of his bookshelves. He should be drunk by now, he figured, but his drink and his sadness had mingled so thoroughly that he no longer felt off, just gutted. He still had a pile of wailing old gospel albums Wendy'd lent him, and his first thought was to spin them out the window and let them shatter against the pavers of Magdalen College, then burn the covers in his fire. But it was too hot for fires, and then Stanley figured the best revenge was actually listening to them. He'd prove he was still integral to their relationship if it was the last thing he did, and even if he did it silently, unbeknownst to either of them.

Wendy called him once, and he wasn't even ashamed of how thick his voice was with tears, how he couldn't get a straight sentence out before his words broke down into heaving sobs. "I'm sorry, mon cher, I'm so sorry," was all she could say. "I didn't think it was going to hurt you like this!"

"How could you think it wouldn't hurt me?" Stanley asked her. "What sort of person do you think would want to share a boyfriend like that, what sort of person do you think I am that I would gladly continue to fuck someone's husband—"

"Because, Stanley, dearest, it's just a marriage of convenience. I didn't think it was something like stealing, I just thought we three could work something out together. Besides, you know, there's Kyle—"

"Leave Kyle out of it! Kyle's nothing to do with your convenient aristocrat marriage!"

"I thought he had," Wendy had said slowly. "Token thinks—"

"I don't care what Token thinks! He's a bloody prig and you're a traitorous cunt."

There had been silence. Then she'd said, "I deserve that."

"Oh, god." Stanley blew his nose right on the telephone, into his sleeve. He didn't care if she thought him vile. She was vile. They both were.

"I thought you'd like planning the wedding with me," she said, tentative. "You're — you're sad, dear, I know, but I don't think you quite understand it. I don't quite understand it myself but I have to do this, Stanley, we _have to_. We have to and I—"

Stanley took no satisfaction in the fact that she was crying too.

"It's just a bad situation all around!" she wept. "I'm sorry, Stanley, forgive me. You're the best, darling, the greatest, and I can't — I have to go, I'm sorry! I'll call, I promise, I have to go." That was when she had hung up the phone.

Stanley had spent every night since then on the floor of his room, listening to howling gospel dirges and drinking, drinking until he could not rise from the carpet. He left his windows open and when he went out for a sandwich, or to limp sadly to the off-license for supplies, every man on the street was Token to him, smiling broadly, apologetic.

One night there came a knock on the door, and Stanley just shouted, "It's unlocked," and he sat up, wiping the gunk from his eyes and the grime from his hands.

It was Kyle. "Christ!" he exclaimed when he shut the door behind him. "Leaving your door unlocked! Anyone could come in here and—"

"What? They might do something untoward to me? Rob me blind? Yes, my two pairs of plimsolls, my typewriter, and my novels. Wendy's fucking gospel albums and a bunch of empty liquor bottles. What a bounty." Stanley laughed at himself, foisting a bottle of sherry at Kyle, who hadn't even taken his jacket off. It was late May. Wasn't he warm?

"I'm worried about you," Kyle said, sitting down. He then took his jacket off, and put it neatly on the pouffe. His nose was still a bit swollen, bent right in the middle, puffy like a sausage roll that was burned on one side. The visual made Stanley grin, and Kyle hid his face with his hands.

"Your lip's healed nicely," Stanley said, getting off the floor and brushing the dust from his trousers.

"Don't make it about me," Kyle said. "I came to see you. Miss B says that old Clyde's told her that Token—"

" 'The right honorable the Viscount Black,' you must mean—"

"Butters tells me he's getting married!" Kyle sat down in the armchair, crossing his arms as if to emphasize the seriousness. "To Wendy Testaburger!"

"Yes." Stanley moved Kyle's coat to the bed and sat down on the pouffe. He wiped at his nose. "I know."

"And you've just—"

"Gone missing? Darling, I know, but don't worry — I've finished my thesis, it's all turned in. I'm just waiting for exams to start, I guess—" And then despite Stanley's attempt to be calm and serious, he sighed, and without a moment's pause he broke down into short sobs again, his face in his hands. He looked up only to see Kyle looking at him, pity and discomfort in the same detached frown. "I don't know which of them I'm supposed to hate more. I loved both of them, you know! And fuck, school's ending, I haven't got a clue, I've — everything is a mess. Kyle, darling, you don't know—"

"I know, Stanley. Shhh."

"No, you don't know, I haven't told you—"

"Haven't told me what?" Kyle inched closer,

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters," said Kyle. "Generally, I miss you. But I hate seeing you like this. You know, I didn't come at first, because I thought it might be disturbing to me, in _my_ current state, to see you like this." He sighed. "But now I need you to be all right again."

"Why?" Stanley asked. "You don't give a shit about me, either. No one does. Literally everything is shit, do you know that? I used to think we understood each other on some level, you know, that we felt each other's pain in some metaphysical dimension. When you were hurt, I was devastated. The only thing that made it better was the idea that I could prevent it from happening again, somehow. Or at least offer some solace, you know. But I'm hopeless. It's really just generally hopeless. I have been thinking quite a bit about a conversation we had earlier this year, in which I said nobody had ever loved me, and you said that was untrue. Well, here we are. No one's ever going to love me." Realizing that sounded too self-pitying to stomach, Stanley added, "It's illegal, for one thing."

Quietly, Kyle got up and went to Stanley's makeshift bar, studying the tops of the bottles. "Don't you have anything other than sherry?"

"Hard liquor," Stanley said. "I've developed a taste for it."

Kyle sat back down, exhaling a sigh. "Too butch. I need a girl's bevvy. Something that says, 'I am a bitch, boys. Mount me like a fucking bitch.' "

Stanley pushed the bottle back toward Kyle. "Then sherry it is."

After a long drink of sherry, Kyle wiped his lips. He leaned forward, becoming very quiet: "I hope, Stanley, that you live a life sufficiently long enough to have your heart broken dozens of times, thousands of times. I hope I'll be here to help you pick up the pieces. I trust you'd do the same. And I hope we never shatter at the same time, because if you're correct and we can feel each other's pain, well, that would be an unbearable amount of pain."

Stanley nodded. "I should have slugged Eric when I had the chance."

"I just don't want him to go to the police, that's all. Let this be the end of it. I am getting well out of here and away from him. So it's behind me, now."

"You are still headed back to London, I presume? And to a place of your own?"

"Well, yes. Just as soon as I could get a job."

"What if I came, too?"

"Well, that's preposterous," said Kyle. "Don't go down just for me."

"For both of us, really. I believe it's time I got out of here, too. There are men in London, Kyle. Other men, like we are."

"I'm aware. I showed you those men! Give me some credit."

"I give you all the credit, darling. It's just that I have come, after much thinking and some real hopelessness, to the conclusion that my life would be best lived away from here, and with you, and in a place where there exists more than one venue a man can walk into, in broad daylight, and find another man with whom to have sex. Or not even have sex! Just talk. Just exist. Shouldn't that be what we all want? To just exist?"

"It sounds like a very small desire, when you express it like that."

"I like academia," said Stanley, "but I'm done here, it's obvious."

"Well, that's jolly well," said Kyle, and it was clear that he did not consider Stanley's position to be serious.

But Stanley _was_ serious. He knew what he had to do.

* * *

It had been some time since Stanley had been home. Since Christmas, probably. He had seen his parents for dinner recently; he had joined them at a place in town for his mother's birthday. Yet Stanley had been distracted, preoccupied with Token, and with Waugh, and with the ever-firming plan for his future. Stanley had seen the children once, taking Rhian to the Ashmolean to look at the Classical sculpture, steering her warily toward the pale white thighs of lovingly sculpted young men. But that had been some time ago, months now, and stepping into the old row house he'd grown up in, Stanley felt a surge of guilt over his recent absence. The feeling only intensified when his mother wrapped her arms around him and kissed both of his cheeks and began to paw at his hair, fretting that he needed it cut.

"I like my hair," he said quietly, though it was less that he liked it and more than he liked not minding it.

"You're such a handsome boy," she said, attempting to tuck in the T-shirt he let hang over his belt. "You needn't dress so slovenly."

"Why?" he asked. "I've nowhere else to go today."

"It's just strange, to see you growing up so adult, and yet so not. But 21 is still quite young, I suppose. Just, let me get a good look at you."

He allowed it, and sat on a chair in the parlor for a few minutes while she drank him in, chatting about Shelly's children and insisting, "Your father is impossible. He's been driving me batty lately. And he's really worried about _you_. Just _impossible_."

"I really hope not." Stanley meant it.

His father came home around the time dinner was served. They had a big fish pie, soggy cod and leftover bits of other whitefish buried in a tasteless, thin sauce, with burst peas and slim carrots, flecks of brownish dried herbs, and a blanket of mash at the top, browned in the oven. The thing came out in its casserole dish nearly undulating with heat. Stanley had known it wouldn't burst, but it still represented some vague threat as it steamed on a trivet centered on the kitchen table. When Stanley took his first bite he was overwhelmed with the luxury of dairy in the potatoes, with almost the smoothness of ice cream.

As he ate it, his mother leaned over and said, "You're too slight, you know. It's as if you never eat."

"I eat enough," said Stanley, "I mean, I'm not dead."

"That's really a very cynical thing to say."

"It's not cynical," said Stanley, though he didn't want to quibble with her over the definition. He grew up conscious of the fact that she was smart; she had a sort of innate, motherly knowledge that somehow colored their relations. She knew him, in some sense, in some way that took a real understanding of humanity; that much was clear. But like most women Stanley knew she hadn't been schooled properly, and though she read — perhaps had given him his love of writing — she sometimes let her general ignorance creep through. It was as if she had the powers of deduction and reason but lacked the information upon which she should rightly have set them.

Concurrently Stanley's father, the perpetually aggravated don, carried knowledge around with him like a burden but lacked any sort of sense. He ate hunched over, fork in one hand and can of Fuller's in the other, not shoveling the food into his mouth as one might expect but dissecting it to examine its layers, seeking to understand the delicate construction of a plate of rich and runny fish pie. If asked, Stanley might have described his father as a sort of savant; he knew only how to use the keen tools he'd already sharpened, and then he applied them broadly to the remainder of his life. It was sad, because Stanley became aware as he was eating a sort of craving for intimacy with this man in the same sense that Stanley's mother tried to coax out of _their_ relationship. He wished his father might have known him, might have come to understand him over 21 years with the same incisive and inherent sensitivity his father had for the substance of the planet.

It was thinking of his father in this sense that led Stanley to his approach. After dinner they sat at the table, Sharon Marsh in the background, listening to the wireless at low volume as she scrubbed dishes.

"I think I'm in love." This was Stanley's first stab, uttered deadpan as he cracked open a beer.

"With who?" Randy was working on his third. "Man or woman?"

"A city," said Stanley. "London. I want to go to London."

"Jesus," he said. "And what about your fourth year?"

"Well, I can't do it, you know, if I'm going to move to London."

"So then, what now? What's the plan, Stanley?"

He sat there silently, wondering what he might say.

"The problem," Randy continued, "is that a person needs to do _something_ , obviously, if he is going to survive. It's not — you wouldn't go with men for money, would you?"

"What!" This thought had actually never occurred to Stanley, and he felt a sudden burst of anger at that fact that his father had both raised it and dismissed it in an instant. "No, that's not even occurred to me. I don't _have_ a plan. I just know it's where I need to go."

"But, your degree—"

"I'm going to take it at the end of this term."

"What about that fourth year?" his father asked.

"I can't do it," said Stanley.

"Any reason why not?"

"I just can't," he said. "You don't want to hear it, sir, just — I have something inside of me, I know it. But it will fester if I stay here."

"That's dramatic," said his father.

Stanley sat upright, the condensation on his beer can making an awful slick in his sweaty hands. "But it's true."

Randy finished the end of his third beer, and crushed the can in his grip as if it were nothing. It _was_ nothing, Stanley saw, merely rubbish, and yet not so long ago it had been cold and potent and full. His mother came to whisk the empty can away, and his father prattled on: "I can't have you just running off like that. You're an adult and all but it's obvious you're not on the right track. You've got no money, and no job prospects—"

"I'll have a baccalaureate degree."

"—please don't interrupt me! — you'll have that degree but no job. And then what?"

"I had hoped," said Stanley, "I might get a flat with Kyle."

"Who?"

"My best friend."

"Oh, yes, right, the little ginger chap. He's not your lover, is he?"

"No, just a friend."

"And has _he_ got money?"

"He hopes his father can get him a job."

"Who's his father, then?"

" _Well_." Stanley sat up, and laid it all out, especially the parts about Kyle's father's family's money, and Kyle's mother's seat in Parliament, and their stately house in north-central London. "I spent that summer there," he concluded, "and you told me you used to drink with Gerald Broflovski, when he was a teaching fellow one year. A long time ago."

Randy became quiet; his wife somehow sensed what this meant and delivered him another beer. Snapping it open, he seemed to regard the can with unusual interest. "That was a long time ago," he finally said. "You weren't born then. It was before the war."

"Well, now I'm friends with Kyle, and he is going back down to London, and I wish to go, too."

The wireless snapped off, Sharon came to sit with them at the table, bringing three small plates and three small forks, weightless as she set them on the table. "It's ridiculous to argue," she said. "He wants to start his life there."

"Sharon—"

"He's not a boy anymore," she said, as if Stanley weren't sitting there himself. "Nobody kept you from making decisions about your own life. You can't keep him here."

"But I can't just give him money to run away like some layabout, Sharon—"

"Then make a deal with him! He's a good boy, he'll do it. Just ask him. Would you do something for your father, Stanley, if he agreed to help you let a flat in London? And gave you some money to eat?"

"Hm," said Randy, as if he wished to show that the wheels were turning.

"Well, yes, of course I would!"

"Well, there you are. That wasn't difficult, Randy, was it?" She stood up and bent over, pressing a kiss to the top of Stanley's head. "I'll get the pudding."

When she had stepped away, to prepare Bird's Eye custard over the range, Randy turned to his son and cracked his knuckles. They were in the thick of it now, this negotiation. "I don't want any more of this nonsense with men. You've had some fun, but it's over now. Time to get serious. You could at least _try_ , you know, with a woman."

"I'm afraid that's the one thing I can't do," said Stanley. "It would be like telling you to try it with a _man_ , don't you see? I can't will myself to do it."

"And how do you know I've never tried it with a man? You don't know everything about me."

Now Stanley knew his father was a bit drunk, passed the low-level constancy of his usual imbibing. "What a patently ridiculous thing to say. Look, Dad, I can't do it."

"I'm sure you could," he said. "It's like anything else: playing a musical instrument, or reading a foreign language. It's simply a matter of practice and effort."

"It's not," said Stanley. "I can't will myself to — to physically perform like that. Don't you think I've tried? Don't you think if I felt it were possible to go with a girl, I'd go with one? I don't want to be like this! Nobody wants to be like this!"

"Then you'd be willing to try another approach?"

"I just want to live free from the pressure to radically change myself."

"Then it might be worth trying something." Stanley's father stood up, taking his beer with him. "I've something in the study. Wait here just a moment."

While he was gone, Stanley's mother came over with the pudding, a pale cake swimming in a thin, shimmering custard, speckled with currants. She set it down on the trivet formerly occupied by their fish pie. "Your father means well," she said, leaving again to grab a spoon. Yet she kept talking: "He can be impossible, I know, but he doesn't _mean_ badly."

"I don't mean badly, either," said Stanley, "so how come I never get proper credit for not meaning badly?"

Here was the root of Stanley's troubles, the way he knew his mother was clever but unprepared: She did not even try to give him an answer. She came back to the table with a wooden spoon, sliding it into the steaming pudding. It smelled lightly of imitation vanilla, of the tang of orange and the chalk of powered milk. She kissed him on the head again, sweeping his fringe out of his eyes. "I wish you'd cut your hair," she said. "You're such a handsome, clever boy."

He said, "Thank you," but his attention was elsewhere. He felt too ill to eat his pudding by the time his father returned to the kitchen, slamming down a business card on thick, blanched white paper stock:

_The Sidmouth Street Clinic_

_Treatment for Developmental Disorders and Indecency_

"Make an appointment," said Randy, "and I shall underwrite your expenses."

"For how long?" Stanley asked.

"Until it's worked. Until you're cured."

"And if I can't be cured?"

"You will be," said Stanley's father. "It's only a matter of time."

"So, on a monthly basis, then? Until I'm cured?"

"Until then, yes."

Stanley looked to his mother. She had a sort of nervous look on her face, as if she knew this portended nothing good for any of them. But she mustered a conciliatory smile, grabbed one of the thin china plates, and plopped a serving of pudding onto it. Steam now billowed from the pile of pudding on the plate. She stuck a fork in it, too. "I think that's very fair," she said, "considering."

"I'll consider it later." Stanley took the plate with reservation. He did not have an appetite for sweets at the moment.

* * *

Both dread and relief followed this development. Stanley had a copy of the _A to Z_ , two years old, and he immediately returned from his parents' to look up Sidmouth Street. Would it be tree-lined? Narrow? Paved with cobbles, full of Georgian rowhouses, rebuilt in stingy post-bombing brick, busy with traffic, choked with businesspeople stuffing down sandwiches at noon? An apprehension ate away at Stanley's consciousness that could only be countered by the excitement, genuine and full, of keeping Kyle within his grasp — if only for a short time. It was late when he returned home, too late to call anyone studying nervously for exams, but Stanley rang Kyle the next morning and made a date to see him at the pub in the afternoon.

"I'll be there," Kyle agreed, "though I shouldn't be drinking on all these pills—" for the pain in his nose, he meant.

"Is that something that's just occurred to you?"

"It's something my mother made me aware of when I spoke to her last night."

"As it happens, I spoke to mine last night, too," said Stanley, "and we'll discuss it this afternoon."

"Well, I'll be there," Kyle agreed. And he was, though he was late, grimacing at his naked wrist and swearing he would invest in a pocket watch, someday. "A beautiful Cartier one, with the face of a geisha on the front. One of those."

"Yes, one of those," Stanley agreed, though he really wasn't sure there were pocket watches decorated with the glittering visages of geishas.

They got a bottle of cheap sherry, their standard, and began to chat. They quickly worked their way through the sherry and spoke of nothing. Kyle was moaning about his reluctance to move back in with his parents while he sought work; Stanley immediately interceded with the news of his decision to come up to the capital and stay there, forever.

"Don't throw your career away on me, dear." Kyle whined, refilling his glass, then splashing the end of the bottle into Stanley's. "Though it's noble of you to offer to follow. No, Stanley, you should stay here. Keep to your path, or whatever. I'm going to be relatively miserable, you know. I'll be better off alone. "

"What career?" Stanley asked. He sipped the last of the sherry, pondering whether he should signal for another bottle. Would he have money to drink in London? Would he be allowed, whilst he complied with the program? Did even asking imply he intended to comply? "Look, I have no career aspirations. I just want to write. I had questions about _how_ to write, precisely, and when Garrison offered me the fourth year, I thought, well, he might be a shrill old beast, but at least he's someone to discuss _literature_ with, you know. I needn't confine my investigations to Waugh — I wondered if I should look at Forster."

"I'll bet Garrison hates Forster, too."

"Whether or not he does." A shrug, and a sip of sherry. It was dry on Stanley's lips, so he licked them. "I don't need to stay here to learn how to write. I just have to write. It's that simple. I had questions about life experience, of course, but I learned something recently. Life happens while one survives, you know. And I can survive just as well in London."

"Well, that's all well and good," said Kyle, "but _survive_ on what, exactly? I'm not sure you'll be able to live with my parents indefinitely, and certainly not if Ike turns up — you know, assuming he's not _dead_."

"Oh, he's not dead. Don't even say that. Look at all the trouble the little bugger's caused you. He isn't done yet."

"Well…"

"Well, look." Stanley's tone became very quiet. He tried to be serious: "My father has agreed to finance my existence. And with that money we could let a flat, I suppose."

Taking some interest in this, Kyle raised an eyebrow and asked, "Oh?"

"Yes," said Stanley. "It's enough. That is the point. I told him I was going and he agreed to give me the money."

"How much money?" Kyle asked, his eyes wide. "Stanley, that's ridiculous!"

"Enough," said Stanley, "and in perpetuity."

"That's so ridiculous it's brilliant!"

"Yes, I'm quite pleased."

"For what purpose? Was he drunk? Why would he agree to such a thing?"

"Yes, of course he was drunk." For courage, Stanley finished the rest of his drink. He steeled himself: "Because I've agreed to pursue, er. Treatment."

"For what, though, dear? Asthma?"

Saying nothing, Stanley raised his eyebrows and made an outward gesture with both hands, curling his fingers inward. While Kyle stared at him with confusion, Stanley said, "You know, my little uranist problem. The inversion issue."

It took a moment for Kyle to react, then in shock he blurted, "What!"

"It's as I said." Now Stanley wished his glass weren't empty.

"Be serious!"

"I am serious."

"Don't joke — Stanley, what the bloody—"

"I am not joking, darling. I just go this little clinic in Sidmouth Street three times a week, and he'll finance my existence."

"But what sort of existence is that! And for the money? I'm aghast! I'm repelled! I'm — Stanley, please! You can't be serious."

"I already said I was serious, and only a fool would do it for the money," Stanley said.

"Then why are you doing it?" Kyle asked, after a moment.

"Because." Stanley's voice was very dry, like the sherry they'd been drinking.

"Do you think it's going to work?"

"No! No, I don't think it's going to work."

"Ah."

"I don't think it's going to work," Stanley continued, "and that's why I have to do it. Because I should like them to see it's something that cannot be reversed. My father is a man of science, so he'll understand — I mean, if it doesn't work."

"And what if it does?" Kyle asked, and Stanley heard the fear in his voice. "What if it does work, what if it cures you?"

"Well, on principle, I wouldn't want it to. But, it won't." The glass was slippery with condensation, and Stanley blotted at it with his paper bar napkin before lifting it to his lips. "You've nothing to fear. It's just a bit of electricity."

"Who said I was afraid of it working? Maybe I'd want it done myself."

"No, you wouldn't, darling. You're braver than I."

"Hardly!" Kyle seemed sincere.

Stanley was, too. "You are who you are," he said, "and I always admired that. I wanted to be that, too. But I can't be anymore, you know. I have to do this."

"You mustn't! Stanley, it can be very destructive! If you ended up as a vegetable — even as a different person—"

"The decision's made," said Stanley. He got up, his glass empty. "The conversation's over."

"It's over when I say it's over!"

"No, darling. Not this time!"

Kyle got up to follow Stanley toward the WC. "Look at me!" he demanded, pushing past tables and chairs. Some of the few drawn, neglected pensioners scattered around the pub barely reacted to this performance, and Kyle paid them no heed anyway. "Look at my face and tell me it's possible to just erase it because it's easier. If for a second I thought there was any other way I could be, any slight hope of escaping this, I wouldn't dare dream of persisting." He grabbed Stanley's shirt, yanking him into the toilets.

It was dark in there, with cracked green tile on the walls, and the only light one buzzing yellowed fixture just over the door. There was one stall in the corner, a sink, and a wall of three urinals. Stanley couldn't imagine pulling in this joint. It lacked the gritty vibrancy of a truly depressing cottage, the snap of energy that came with a steady crowd of cruisers, casting come-hither eyes across the badly lighted room. There was no refuge in disgrace here; this was a mere pub, and its patrons mere pensioners.

With a sigh, Stanley crossed his arms. The very thought that perhaps Kyle wanted to dissuade him from coming down to London was maddening. "I don't want to do it," he said. "But it's not something you'd understand, darling. I don't want to stay in Oxford for the rest of my life. I don't want to _be_ here any longer. I've spent my entire life here and I don't want to die here. Could you try to see it that way? It's the money, and it's the chance to get away. And then it won't work, and I'll be done with it. And perhaps then they'll understand it won't work. Or I could write something about why it didn't work. But, I need to be in London. I have learned this about myself recently." He became quiet, uncrossing his arms: "And I need to be with you."

Kyle spat out a laugh. "Why would you need to be with _me_? I'm a sad old queen with a ruined face."

"You're a beautiful young man," said Stanley. His face became hot. "But that's not the point. The point is, darling, we need each other. I'll have a little money and you'll have your wits, and we'll struggle through it together, like that."

"Struggle through what?" Kyle asked.

"You know," said Stanley. "Adulthood. Since it's upon us now and all that. And without any wives or whatever we'll just have to, you know, struggle through it together, in companionable bachelorhood."

"Oh." Kyle sounded very disappointed. "Well, yes, I suppose it would make sense for us to struggle through it like that. Together. … We are going to need to find a flat."

"I'll come down the week after graduation," said Stanley, "and we'll find one." He stuck out his hand, as if to seal it.

"Oh, come now." Kyle did not take Stanley's hand. "Give us a kiss, at least, dear. I've never heard of two men shaking hands in a lavatory. It's much more fitting if you at least use your mouth."

Stanley blushed, furiously, feeling a heat fill him unlike anything he'd felt in some time. "All right," he said, taking Kyle's waist into his embrace.

It was brief and dry, and yet, it meant everything.

* * *

Term was winding down. Exams behind him, Stanley baked in the June sun, lying on the bank of the Cherwell. Rain was said to be coming in the late afternoon, but there was no hint of it in the blue sky streaked with plodding cotton clouds. Tree branches overhead and sunlight in his eyes, Stanley grappled with his decision: going down was so final. He would laze on near the river again the next day, and the day after next, and every day until he packed up his things at the end of the next week and left his time as a student of Magdalen behind him. There would be no more soaking in the daylight by the Cherwell, no more youth in which to glory. His time at university had, like the river, broken off and dwindled down into a little stream, disappearing into the anonymous and deafening roar of the unknown, its waters mingling with other, larger, better-defined rivers, flowing into the city and into the coursing vein of history, a mere tributary of something bigger and more infinite than Stanley himself had ever thought to be. As a boy he had laid alone in his bed, wishing to escape the confines of his family's small home, silently hoping he would one day slip into the knobby old walls of one of Oxford's fine colleges, processed into the rich legacy of its alumni, drawing strength from its potential until he had eclipsed what Oxford had given him and was ready for something else. On the bank of the river that day, Stanley knew it had come at last. He had grown too big for Magdalen. It could no longer contain him. He had to depart.

And so he did, brushing the yellow grass from the seat of his trousers and walking out of Magdalen to Garrison's office. He sat down in front of the old man, declining a drink and flashing a sad smile. "I have to go," he said. "I cannot stay here. It's a generous offer but I've decided to move to London."

Garrison's demeanor was unimpressed. "Marsh, you bloody dolt," he said. "Don't do that."

"I'm sorry, sir. I have to."

"Of course you don't! Don't be ridiculous."

"I really don't feel I have any choice. I'm not being ridiculous, sir, and I appreciate your vote of confidence in me—"

"Vote of confidence my arse," said Garrison. "This is about Broflovski. He's going down and you're following him."

"No! Well — it couldn't possibly be any _one_ reason. But don't worry, sir. I will be fine. Eventually." He cringed at the way he sounded hoarse, as if he'd been crying. He hadn't cried in three days.

"It's no consideration of mine if you're _fine_. Of course you shall be fine. A good-looking boy from an upstanding family — just don't find yourself in trouble with Betty Bracelets and there won't be any concern. But what sort of life is that? And what good does it do me if all of my upstanding tutees go off and slum it in London?"

"I won't be slumming it, I hope. My father's going to give me an allowance."

"Awfully generous of him," Garrison sniped, "though I suppose anything's possible on a full _professor_ 's salary." He sighed, removing his glasses, rubbing his eyes. Then he put them back on and said, in an unusually soft voice, "Don't follow that boy to London."

"But I love him," said Stanley.

At this Garrison outright laughed, mean and short. "And what's that bloody worth, Marsh?"

"You don't even know, sir. Faustian stuff."

"He's not that good. Nanti the kosher homie, you know, he isn't much. Especially with that broken nose."

"You don't know him very well." Stanley stood, extending a hand. "Thank you, sir."

Garrison didn't take it. "I mean, he's smart, of course, but he's constantly chasing after a bit of rough, and that's not _you_ , Marsh. It's never going to be you. Don't just throw out your potential on chasing some untenable dream. What happens if you seduce him, then? You move into a little flat, you stop having sex — and then some other little tart comes along and unseats the whole thing between you." There was evident pain in his voice, as if he referred to some distant yet still-open injury, an experience too raw on which to elaborate. "The thing you're throwing away your life to chase after is a lie. There's no permanence in that. All you have is yourself, and what you do with yourself now is the thing that matters. Writing is permanence. Kyle Broflovski is fleeting."

Stanley looked down at him. For all he knew his old don's words made crystal sense, there was something in Stanley, some bruised defiant will, that ached to assert itself over the best and most personal logic. "I'm going," he said. "It's done. I'm leaving."

"I see." Garrison stood, too, and finally took Stanley's hand. "You're an utter fool, boy."

"I know, sir."

"Stay out of the tearooms. Stick to the pubs."

"That's good advice," said Stanley, with every intention of following it. "Thank you."

"You'll be fine."

"I will," Stanley agreed. "I'm certain I will, in the end."

On the walk back to his rooms, Stanley thought deeply on the nature of what Garrison had said to him, and what he might have said to Kyle when Kyle had announced his departure. It was the sort of thing Kyle would probably not tell, at least, if he hadn't told it yet there was probably nothing flattering in it. Stanley considered those words, _writing is permanence_. "Well," he said aloud to himself, the warm spring air whisking his fringe in front of his eyes, "I can still write."

From the street in front of Magdalen some first-year called to him, "Hey, you! Who're you talking to?"

Glancing up at the boy, Stanley saw he was short, with bad acne, impossibly young. He had big hair, though, a great mess of it wiry and untamed, brown like the dirt in Stanley's parents' garden, and he was vacant-eyed. As Stanley passed he smelt the sweet sting of marijuana on the boy. It was likely in his robes, under his nails, in his hair. "Just myself," Stanley muttered to him.

"That's queer," was the reply. From his pocket this youth drew a cigarette and a lighter, lifting the former slowly to his lips, as if to be demonstrative.

Walking through the gate and around the cloister, it dawned on Stanley: it was over.

He would never be young again.


	4. Epilogue: With Claws Out: July 1967

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last part of the story! More notes to follow.

Stanley's parents insisted on driving him down. It was a point of some contention, a debate within the family. His father, of course, wanted nothing to do with it. Once Stanley had made his first appointment, he'd been handed an envelope of cash and told, quite emphatically, to go.

"I was a young man once," Randy Marsh said, in a show of some empathy. "Still am, in some ways. And I understand that a young man needs a moment to — you know, sew his oats. Exercise his autonomy, or whatever. So do whatever you need to do down there. Just — when you come back here to settle, and you will, make sure it's with your wife."

It was crippling, in some sense, how badly his father had misread the situation. It took quite a bit of force to silence himself and say, "Yes, Dad. Very good." They had a deal, and Stanley was leaving. What did he care? The next bridge could always be crossed whence arrived at.

It was his mother who insisted on driving him, and the cause of an argument between Stanley's parents. "He's our son," she said, "and he's going away."

"He knows how to take the train."

"I won't put him on a train like he doesn't matter. It's not a discussion, Randy."

Stanley wanted to appreciate the kindness she meant in this gesture, but he wished they'd left him well alone.

It was a Sunday in July, the car warm and uncomfortable. The train might have been no less pleasant, but it would have felt less like an armed escort delivering him to some unpleasant fate. He brought two trunks, one of clothing and one of books, having left his personal effects back in Oxford. His parents seemed to have taken this as a promise that he might return quickly; they were very optimistic about the treatment.

There was an awkward dinner that evening at Kyle's parents' house, where Stanley would stay as they searched for their flat. Sheila Broflovski had cooked a dish of grains and carrots, with a big tray of cold deli meats to accompany it, a spread of beef tongue and coarsely chopped chicken livers, everything very salty and laced with veins of fat. A sack of bagels sat on the dining room table as Stanley and Kyle listened to their parents share an awkward conversation about their children's presumably separate futures.

"I think it's wonderful," Sheila said, as if everyone at the table was required to agree. "I had a little adventure myself when I graduated college, you know, applying for a Rhodes. It wasn't what I was supposed to do, but I did it. I guess I had a sense of personal responsibility, as if I knew I could do something more with myself than just sitting at home boiling knishes for the rest of my life. A person needs to enter society more fully than that. We're all members of various communities. We should all eat knishes."

"I have no idea what you mean," said Stanley's father. "What are knishes?"

"Oh, they're these little dumplings," said Sheila, "with some boiled meat inside. They're similar to kreplach, or pot stickers—"

Randy shook his head. "Nope."

"Don't be rude," Sharon scolded him.

"I don't know what any of this food is, I guess. Maybe that makes me uncultured. The idea of London makes me uneasy."

"Is there anything your son might do that wouldn't make you uneasy?" Kyle's father asked.

"I don't know," said Randy. "Maybe if he weren't stubborn and strong-willed I wouldn't be bothered."

"Well, where do you think he gets that from, Randy?" Stanley's mother said.

"So now it's my fault?"

"Nothing is anyone's fault," said Sheila.

Gerald Broflovski added, "Children do what they please. We've learned that recently. You can lead them to water but it's no use forcing them to drink it, to borrow that metaphor. There's a sentiment from Hillel—" and he began to recite something in Hebrew.

"I don't get it," said Randy. "But thank you for the knishes."

"Yes, they're lovely," Sharon added.

"That's actually tongue," said Kyle. It was the only thing he contributed to the conversation, other than a swift, "May we be excused now?"

Gerald dismissed them, and Stanley said good bye to his parents. His mother wept slightly; his father shook his hand and said, in a hurt tone, "We have a deal."

"I shan't forget," Stanley concurred, putting some queer lilt into it. He then followed Kyle upstairs, leaving his parents to drive back to Oxford.

They spent the rest of the evening listening to old Gilbert and Sullivan soundtracks, and smoking a small joint Kyle had found in his brother's room. It felt almost normal, like a return to that riveting summer of 1965, though Kyle's nose was still purplish and Stanley was not sure if he would ever trust any man again.

Eventually, when the joint was reduced to a small and pointless stub, Kyle wilted across Stanley's thighs and looked up at him and said, "We'll have to talk about flat-hunting in the morning."

"Yes," said Stanley. "Where should we look?"

"Soho," said Kyle, "so we can be with all the sparkling queens of Soho."

"I like that," Stanley agreed. They fell asleep together in a loose and foggy pile.

In the morning they were awoken by the housekeeper, who informed them that Stanley had a telephone call.

"Who's calling?" Kyle asked, throwing on a plush bathrobe.

"A girl," said the housekeeper, and Stanley definitely knew from whom he'd received a call. He shuffled to the phone in total dread, picking it up with trepidation.

"Wendy," he said drily. He just _knew_.

"Stanley," she said. "I called your parents' house and your mother said you'd be here."

"I suppose that's accurate," said Stanley, "since I'm here." He began to wrap the phone cord around his fingers, tightly.

"I was wondering — do you have my old records? The gospel LPs I lent you."

"Yes," he said, "though I'm afraid I've left them in Oxford."

"Oh." She cleared her throat. "I'm not in a hurry to get them back."

"Well, I'm sorry," he said, "my decision to leave — I barely thought of it, which was rude—"

"It wasn't," she said. She paused for a moment. "If the cost of your happiness was my gospel records, well, I suppose that's more than fair to me. Keep them forever."

"What if I don't want your records?"

"Well, I'll get them back sometime," she said.

"All right," he said, "good bye."

"No, Stanley, don't hang up!" There was desperation in her voice. "I miss you."

Stanley looked up to see Kyle approaching in his bathrobe, hands in the pockets. He mouthed the words, "Why is _she_ calling?"

"I miss you too," he said, "though it's evidence that I'm completely mentally and emotionally diagnosable, since you're the bitch who conspired to marry my — friend."

"That's fair," she said. "I deserve that, it's fine. But, look, you're in London, and I am in London. Do you want to get a drink?"

He thought about this for a moment. It was as if someone else accepted. "But just a drink," he added, regretting it.

"Token wants to come," she said. "May I bring him?"

Stanley wanted that very much. It was almost more appealing. "I'll bring Kyle," he agreed.

"I don't want to come!" Kyle exclaimed.

"He says he doesn't want to come?"

"Ignore him," said Stanley. "Where shall we meet?"

"This evening," she said. "At Black House. You know where it is?"

"Yes," he said. "Time? How's 9?"

"That's fine," said Wendy.

"Very good."

"Stanley," she said. Again, a moment passed before she said, "I miss you. We both really miss you."

"Well, you won't have to miss me for much longer. Tonight, at 9, at Token's?"

"Yes."

"That's great, thanks. See you." He hung up the phone.

* * *

"If we are to do this, I am going to require a drink," Kyle said sometime later. They were sitting thanklessly in the garden, the sweet smell of summer flowers, white lilies, white roses, and gardenias, wafting on the breeze. The gardenias were potted, brought in and out of doors periodically to liven up the garden or the sitting room. Kyle sat with his back to a pot, the white blooms stark against his fading bruises. Stanley had to admit Kyle's new profile was aesthetically pleasing, though it would take some time to become familiar. It cast a wholly new shadow over the lip of Kyle's teacup as he leaned in across the table. "You can take me out tonight with your dirty money."

"It's not dirty," said Stanley, though he felt it was and had been passively worrying for weeks now about the quality of his person for having agreed to this. Yet sitting in the garden with Kyle on a fine July afternoon he could think of no ill effects to the bargain. "But, yes, I'll take you out."

Stanley could sense it was going to be one of those non-dates, during which they flirted in a sort of camp pantomime. Perhaps they would have sex, even, but it wouldn't mean a thing, and in the morning they would go back to gossiping as they smoked a reefer in the garden, giggling about other people. Stanley thought about the hollowness of this proposition as he laid on Kyle's bed, watching Kyle's bruised torso disappear under the cloak of an old sweater, the baby-soft pink angora with a boat neck that hinted at Kyle's clavicles. He matched these with black cigarette pants, moussed his hair so it cascaded over one side of his face in a dramatic crest, slicked his lips with a housewife-ish brick hue and painted his nails in a matching varnish. He slipped out of the socks he'd been wearing and pulled on a pair of extravagant leather gladiator sandals.

Finally, he disappeared into his parents' bedroom, knowing they were not yet home from work; he returned with a host of bangles on his arms, the sleeves of the sweater rolled up to accommodate this jewelry. They jangled as he reached for the finishing touch, a silk scarf in a homely paisley pattern, the defining shade of which was mustard yellow.

"Aren't you getting dressed up?" Kyle asked. He threw his hands into the air. "A viscount's house!"

"Well, I've been there," said Stanley, "and I rather think it makes a better point if I go like this." He was wearing black denim and a faded black T-shirt with plimsolls, no socks. He sat up and noticed he was pretty hard, reaching to snuff out the joint he'd been working on as Kyle got dressed.

"Oh, don't you dare!" Kyle snatched it away, putting it to his lips, which left a little lipstick smear. It was, to Stanley, the best Kyle had ever looked. This pair of trousers in particular cleaved his ass in such a way that it rounded out invitingly, looking bigger than it really was. Stanley grabbed it on the way out, as Kyle left the remnant of the joint in a small enamel box under the sink in his toilet.

"You look amazing," Stanley said, playing with the fine hairs at the base of Kyle's skull. "They'll be so jealous."

"What, of me?" Kyle scoffed. "That's ridiculous."

"They will! You're a vision."

"All the kids dress like damn idiots," said Kyle. "So I'm both an idiot, and trying to be a kid."

"You're so beautiful," said Stanley.

Kyle touched the side of his nose for a moment, as if remembering he had one. "Let's take a cab," he said. "These shoes are useless on the Tube; I'll get stepped on."

The rational part of Stanley knew that this money came on a monthly basis, and he would have to retain enough to secure a flat and make it to August. But Kyle's beauty softened his resolve. "All right then," he said. "It couldn't hurt."

* * *

Token, Viscount Black, had always had a sort of quiet dignity that he carried forward toward other people. Perhaps, Stanley thought as he sat in the expanse of the parlor at Black House, that this was what was so contemptible about what Token had done to him. To Token they were both civilized adults, and he bore neither anger nor pity toward Stanley. He greeted Stanley with a warm handshake and a soft, "How have you been?" He asked Kyle the same, not flinching at the sight of Kyle's outrageous get-up but, rather, offering to take Kyle's scarf and hang it up himself, if Kyle would like?

"No, thank you." Kyle wrapped it tighter around his shoulders. "I'll hang onto this, thanks." He wriggled ahead like he just knew everyone would be staring at the effect of those black cigarette pants on his bottom, bulging outward with real intention. The best and worst thing about Token was that he was going to act as if Kyle were wearing a three-piece suit.

Lady Wendy Testaburger, on the other hand, grabbed Stanley by the arm and pulled him toward her, whispering in his ear, "Is he _insane_?"

"I think he looks fantastic," Stanley said.

"He looks like he's due to get pulled off the street," she hissed. "What's he doing, dressing like that to come _here_?"

Offering only a smile, Stanley said that he had nothing invested in how Kyle dressed and it really wasn't his outfit to defend.

"If Token's parents were here they'd have coronaries," she noted.

"Well, then I suppose it's well enough that they're not here, are they?"

They all sat together in the parlor; Token poured neat whiskies for himself and Stanley. For Wendy he cracked open a bottle of Prosecco, and Kyle asked for a glass as well. There was some formality to this, as it meant Token had to disappear to the wine cellar for a time, leaving them to Wendy and her imperious mood. She had done her hair in a sort of part-bouffant so that there was volume in the back, pushed up by an alice band, with the rest of it falling down the back of her neck. Away from uni and in summer she had blossomed somewhat, a faint pink color to her nose and cheeks where she had been in the sun for too long. She wore a pair of platform sandals that tied around her ankles in a silk bow, and a shift dress with a geometrical cant to it, a triangular burst of lemon yellow and flamingo pink radiating out from its epicenter under her bust.

"You look good," Stanley said, trying not to make this any worse than it would be.

"Thank you." She reached for her glass of Prosecco and Stanley noticed the ring on her finger, a subtle glint of hard rock catching the low, yellow light of the table lamp at her side. "You look the same."

"I'm not prone to changing." Stanley crossed his arms, sitting as forward as he could to maintain his level of comfort on the couch. "You said you missed me?"

"I do," said Wendy.

"You're not happy here?" He glanced around the room, admiring its fine architectural qualities in a way he hadn't done before, when he came here in the course of his affair with Token, the house itself merely a portal through which he might pass into Token's company.

"I haven't moved in here," she said. "After the wedding, I'm sure. You're invited, of course. If you're interested in coming. I'll invite everyone. I don't have that many friends."

"I thought a cast of friends came with aristocracy," said Kyle, "as if that were the entire point."

"Um, well." She sipped her drink; it was clear that she was not really enjoying it. "I think that might be the case for some people, but it's never been the case for me. Why else would I be entering this marriage in the first place? It satisfies a requirement, and now I am free to pursue ... other things."

"Such as what?" Kyle asked. "Which other things?"

"I don't know," she said, "what do _you_ do for fun?"

"I'm hoping my father can find me a job. But for fun?" A cruel smile appeared on his face. "You'd curl up and die if I told you," he said. "It's not for the delicate ears of noblewomen."

"I'm not that delicate."

"Wendy is enamored with the entire subject," said Stanley, "which is how I found her in the first place, or rather, she found me."

"Yes, I know the story, about the concert and whatever."

"Well, I hardly believe anything you might say would shock her."

Kyle appeared poised to conjure the most shocking and vulgar thing he did for fun, but then Token returned with the whisky. He handed Stanley a cut-crystal glass, a solid object that felt important through its weight. The whisky was good, oaken and rich, unlike the cheap bottles Stanley bought at the off-license near Kyle's house.

"So," Stanley said, setting the glass down on a coaster, "I suppose I should ask, when's the wedding?"

"We're not sure," said Token. "It can't be too quick, can it? We've only known each other six months."

"Five months," Wendy said.

"That doesn't stop very many people," said Kyle.

"Well, I'm in no rush," said Wendy. "I suppose 1968 or 69 makes sense. We should do it at my parents', in Gloucester. That's really the way these things are done."

"And then a honeymoon?" Kyle asked.

"I suppose," she said. "I'm honestly not thinking about it. We're not thinking about it, I should say."

Token turned to her with a look that held such admiration and warmth, Stanley wanted to cry. It occurred to him, suddenly, that Token had been interrogating him back at Llewych, months ago, about the possibility of inviting a woman into the bedroom with them. Perhaps he'd had sex with Wendy, Stanley realized. Perhaps they'd slept together. Stanley's mind began to race. He felt nauseated, suddenly. Maybe he couldn't do this, he thought. Maybe he should stand up and go.

"I'm—"

With a sudden assuredness, Kyle grasped one of Stanley's hands, pulling it into his lap, idly. He began to lace his fingers through Stanley's. "We're getting a flat," he said, "though we're not sure where to look yet."

"Oh," said Wendy. Her tone perked quite a bit. "As a couple?"

"No," said Kyle, "just friends." Now he sounded a little sad. "Stanley's got some things to do in town here."

"What sorts of things?" Token asked.

"Just things," said Kyle.

"My father's making me go to a shrink."

"That doesn't sound so bad," said Token.

Stanley crossed his arms, Kyle's falling by the wayside. "Yes," he said, "perhaps it won't be so bad. Maybe it'll be fun. Who knows." He hoped the bitterness was audible. "Electric shocks and so forth. Could be interesting."

"That sounds awful," said Wendy.

"It's ghastly, actually," said Kyle. "I tried to talk him out of it, but he insisted on following me, and that was the way. Maybe you can talk some sense into him, now that he's here."

"It's fine," said Stanley. "I don't want to talk about it."

"He followed you down here?" Token asked. "To live with you?"

"I'm so boring," said Kyle, though he was wearing actual lipstick and about 30 separate bracelets. "I don't want to talk about me. Let's talk about you. How old is this house? Has it been in the family long?"

"That's so rude," said Wendy.

"It hasn't been in the family long," said Token, "by _old family_ standards, you know. My grandparents bought this house, after doing quite well in the twenties. But I don't know much about the history. It's pre-Regency, I suppose, if my college art history serves me well. But it's nothing I've got a frame of reference for, you know. I wish you wouldn't get so curious and judgmental about these things."

"Judgmental? Me?" Kyle put a hand to his chest, the bangles clacking. "What things?"

"Social, financial things," said Token. "It's rude, all right?"

"I'm not rude," said Kyle. "Stanley, tell them."

Stanley merely shrugged.

"Look, I find it very interesting," said Kyle, "being something of an outsider. I'm dying to know what it's like, getting married and moving into this great house and moving up the line of succession, and so forth."

"Kyle," Token said, "look at me. Do I look as though I am even distantly waiting in line for the throne?"

"Well, I suppose I just assumed it was all part of the same thing."

"No," said Token, "it isn't."

Wendy had finished her glass of Prosecco, and she sat up, assuming an air of authority over the proceedings. Setting the flute aside, she clasped her hands together. "Stanley," she said. "I really — both of us, really — it's important that we make this clear. You're our friend. That mustn't change. For me, especially, though I know Token has expressed as much. Your friendship has meant a great deal to me for three years, and the thought of ending it now pains me greatly. Please consider this — I hate the idea of hurting you. There was no hurt meant when we made this decision. I wish you'd consider for a moment that we are both in precarious positions, that there's a certain expectation and pressure that comes with this social position, one which is in some senses more of a burden than a blessing."

"Don't talk to him about burdens and blessing," said Kyle. "I don't presume to know what you're _referring to_ , anyway, but I assure you, it doesn't require condescension."

"I'm not condescending," said Wendy. "I just want to be friends again. I have so few actual friends, including friends on whom my life decisions would even register as a disappointment. Please consider our offer of friendship."

Stanley cleared his throat. "I'm open to many considerations," he said. "This past year has been — enlightening."

"How do you mean?" Token asked.

"Well, I think we can all agree, we are all in very different positions than we were when preparing to go back up last September. I could write some story about it, I suppose. I think I've got enough material for that."

"What sort of story?" Wendy asked.

"A story about how things played out this year," said Stanley. "My own sort of _Brideshead_ , you know." He laughed. "And wouldn't that be fitting?"

"I for one could never write a _Heart of Darkness_ ," said Token. "Too weighty for me. And if I learned anything about Conrad, it's that my respect for him would prevent me from impinging."

"You know," said Stanley, "when I intended to do another year, I had based that course on an ongoing conversation I had with Garrison in our one-on-ones this past year, about writing. He seemed to want me to get into the nature of writing, which he argued required more experience than I had, or something. But I think that everything sort of comes out when one writes, everything one's committed and everything that's been done to him. I guess if I got one thing from uni, it's that everything impresses upon us. So what I am saying, I suppose, is that the Conrad will come out for you somehow. Though, of course I can't say how."

"Well," said Token, "I'm never going to write anything."

"It's just as well," said Kyle. He was rolling his empty flute between his hands. "Creation is sin anyway, you know."

"That's so dramatic," said Wendy. "Why do you have to treat life as if it's this losing premise?"

"Because it is, heartface. Look at me."

"You look insane," she said.

"Great, my point exactly," said Kyle. He gestured toward Token with his glass. "Do you refill the bevvies around here, or not?"

"I suppose." Token stood, taking the glass from Kyle. "It is the least I can do."

On the way out a bit later, Stanley paused in the foyer while Kyle visited the toilet. "I shouldn't forgive you," he said to both of them, standing there with his arms crossed. "I should be angry, but I'm not. I was sad, and perhaps I'm still sad, but I'm not finding it satisfactory to be angry at _people_. Circumstances, on the other hand—" He sighed.

"You know," said Token. He had his arm around Wendy's shoulders. (They had definitely had sex; Stanley could tell, in the way he let his hand fall at the side of her arm, carelessly.) "I'm not done being sad. But perhaps that's because I can see so many other ways it could have gone."

"Really?" Stanley asked. "I can't." He kept his arms crossed tightly. "You can't be a queer, not in the least, and I can't be anything but."

"But aren't you going to a shrink for that?"

"Yes, but it's not going to work. It's ingrained in me, dear. These things are just ingrained. They'll come out eventually." He said this fully to both of them.

"All right." Kyle reappeared from the toilet, where he had reapplied his lipstick and possibly rearranged his hair. "Thank you for the invite, my dear." He shook Wendy's hand. "And you, I guess," he said to Token. "Lovely home you have here."

"We should do it again," said Wendy. "Make it a little ritual."

"Yes, we should," Token agreed.

They would not do it again for nearly 20 years, though Stanley already understood he'd be taking Kyle to the wedding.

* * *

The unpleasantness of Wendy and Token's union behind him, Stanley began to look for flats with Kyle in earnest. They saw all sorts of furnished bedsits in tatty old buildings, shared rooms in the residences of grizzled bohemians and older queers who liked the idea of two young men shacking up in the spare bedroom. All of Soho seemed impossible, crammed as it was with high-cost, stubborn old flats and crumbling structures Kyle imagined might collapse entirely in the night. They read the lease notices in the back sections of the paper and asked around casually at the Duke of Buckingham. Too many men seemed to be living with their mothers; the other half appeared to have posh townhouses they shared with a wife and three children. Still others, sea queens, lived below deck and merely floated through leave from one bed to the next, staying with the next chap and then the next until they wound up on another voyage, another six-month tour.

"This is so crushing," Kyle said, one morning over breakfast. "It is simply exhausting." He had made, for himself and Stanley, toast and eggs with bowls of oatmeal, a pot of tea, and Bucks fizz to go around. There seemed to be increasing pressure from Kyle's parents to get them out of the house; he wilted over his eggs while he complained to Stanley: "There's nowhere to live in this city. I regret leaving Oxford simply because we now have to contemplate it."

"Cheer up, darling," said Stanley. "We'll find something. By the end of the month, I'm sure."

"We're losing time on that point," said Kyle, as the phone began to ring.

"I wonder," said Stanley.

"I'll get it, dear." Kyle stood, tossing his cloth napkin onto the breakfast table. "Please, don't get up."

Stanley began to pick at his eggs, sopping them up with toast. Soon the phone stopped ringing.

A moment later, Kyle returned, seeming flushed. "It's Miss B!" he exclaimed, not stepping fully into the room. "She's coming down from Durham!"

"For a visit?"

"Permanently," said Kyle, "to stay! To meet Bradley! She's on the line — where do we meet her?"

"When is she coming?" Stanley asked.

"Well, this afternoon — or this evening?"

"She should meet us at the Bucky, then."

"Yes! Oh, I'll – I'll tell her, that, yes! Be right back!" He left the room again.

When he returned, Stanley said, "What time, then?"

"Oh, 5 or 6, I should think – it takes some time to get here, then she will have to straighten some things out, or — I don't know. She said she told her parents, after Bradley had wired her some money to get a ticket. I'm so excited!" Feeling reinvigorated, Kyle dug into his oatmeal.

"We could see some flats," said Stanley, on the way to the pub."

"Soho's pointless," said Kyle. "I want to be near men but I don't want to pay for it, you know."

"Then let's try somewhere else. Let's try, I don't know, Chelsea."

"Why Chelsea?"

Stanley was not quite sure why. "I don't know," he said. "Wendy took me shopping there. It seemed nice enough."

"Fine," Kyle agreed. "We'll go look there, then be at the Bucky at 5."

"It sounds like a plan."

"Yes," said Kyle. He then gobbled up the rest of his oatmeal.

* * *

Being a week day, the Bucky was relatively empty. "I'm so nervous," Kyle said, stepping over the threshold. "I hope things go splendidly for her. It's so exciting, isn't it? Reuniting like this?"

"Like what?" Stanley asked. "You with a new nose?"

"Oh, she's seen the nose! Though I suppose you're right, that the swelling's gotten much better."

"That's not what I meant," said Stanley, though he was distracted from explaining when a man began to make provocative comments about the size of his assets: "I can see you're a fine young stallion, pulling a great big cart!"

Stanley ignored it until he got a pint of beer, crawling into a booth with Kyle, who had let Stanley buy him a shandy. "What an incredibly disappointing line," Stanley said. "Really, what a bother."

"What's that, dear? You're not looking, are you?"

"It's not so much that I am or am not looking as that I might enjoy being looked _at_."

"I'm well over that," said Kyle, though the tight trousers he had on told a different story. "Who needs men at all? They're completely brutal."

Fittingly, this was when Eric Cartman blustered in, seemingly drunk already. He stomped over to their table as Kyle's eyes went wide.

On some instinct, Stanley rose to his feet, perhaps to make up for his inability to physically assault Eric on their last meeting.

"So," Eric shouted, drunk enough to have lost the ability to modulate his voice, "some place, eh? Butters told me to meet him here, but he didn't say the entire chorus line would be performing. Oh, sit down, Marsh, I'm not going to touch the Jewess. She learned her lesson. "

Kyle s face turned red. "Eric!"

"Oh, calm down," Eric repeated, "I mean it. We are even. I'm not going to touch you. Not even if you wanted me between those stretched-out curtains of yours. You can rest assured that it's over." He fell into the booth, his thin hair a bit of a mess. "I just found the most interesting little place" — he paused here to belch— "down the road from here. It's a little theater in the basement, and they're playing the dirtiest flicks. I just blew a load in some bloke's mouth. Really interesting."

"Yes," said Stanley. "That's certainly something."

"Well, bravo, Eric, good for you." There was a note of desperation behind the bitterness in Kyle's tone. "That's great. I remain, as always, impressed with your ability to find the most frustrating things in the world and turn them into complete and utter rubbish. Just complete shit."

"I told you." Eric seemed to be compensating for his total inebriation, saying his words slowly and carefully. "As far as I'm concerned, the matter's behind me. I forgive you."

"Forgive _me_! You bloody — beast — !"

"I don't know," said Eric. "It doesn't half look half bad, actually." He grasped Kyle's nose and gave it a brief squeeze. "That's my last word on the subject."

Stanley remained on his feet, breathing deeply and quickly. "If you ever touch him again—"

"You'll what, you'll actually hit me? Go ahead. I'd like to see you try. That said, I have no interest in touching her again. She's all yours now, Marsh, congratulations. You won."

"Won nothing!" said Stanley.

"I'm neither of yours," said Kyle. "I don't belong to anyone. Except myself! This is so upsetting."

"Darling—" Stanley sat down

"Oh, Jesus Christ—" Eric rolled his eyes.

"Fellas!"

Butters fell into the booth, throwing his arms around Stanley. On his back he had quite a rucksack, presumably stuffed with ladies' clothing and schoolbooks. It made a thumping noise as it fell to the floor. "I'm so delighted to see you all!" He hugged Eric and Kyle, for which he had to lean over Eric. "I made it!" he said. "I'm finally here!"

"That's right, Butters," said Eric. "Welcome to town."

"Oh, welcome to town, like you're the welcoming committee," said Kyle.

"As if a welcoming committee comprising Kyle Broflovski wouldn't scare people away from London permanently, Kyle."

"Fellas, don't fight!" Butters slid into the booth next to Stanley. "I'd love to buy you all a drink, but I don't have any cash."

"Don't worry about it," said Kyle. "Eric is tanked."

"I was celebrating all day," said Eric.

"What were you celebrating?" Stanley asked.

"The triumphant return of my best friend, Butters."

"That's touching," said Butters, with a tear in his eye.

"He found a jack-off theater and fucked some man's mouth," said Kyle.

"I'm just so happy to be here," Butters sighed, as if he hadn't heard that last remark. He looked around the pub, curiously. "What's this place?"

"It's a queer pub," said Stanley. "Kyle and I found it."

"Two summers ago," said Kyle. "I don't know who the owner's giving bribes too, but we've never seen it raided. It's more packed on the weekends, and at night. A bit of a downer, sometimes, but it's possible to pull here, and I've done it. So has Stanley."

"Perhaps I should try my hand at it," said Eric.

"Good luck," said Kyle. "Stick to the theaters."

"Before I came down Garrison told me to stick to the pubs," said Stanley. "I got the idea he had a bad go at some point."

"He wouldn't be at Oxford anymore if that were the case."

"Regardless," said Stanley. "This is it."

"This is what?" Butters asked.

"The first day of the rest of your life," said Kyle.

"Some shit-arse queer pub," said Eric.

"It's the Duke of Buckingham," said Stanley, "and if you're hungry, I recommend the chips. Steer clear of the pies."

"I could go for a pie," said Eric. "Or some chips."

"Or we could have dinner, with Brad."

"Or I could get a pie now and eat dinner with Brad later."

"Two dinners," said Kyle. "Isn't just that emblematic?"

"Emblematic of what, darling?"

Kyle merely shrugged. "I look forward to a calm evening for once," he said, "without my parents. That's all."

"Here," said Stanley, "I have some change. Let me buy you a drink."

"Oh, Stanley, you don't have to."

"You should have one. A round for everyone! My treat. Even Eric, I suppose."

"I'll have a Guinness," said Eric.

"Disgusting," Kyle spat.

"Here," said Butters, and he slipped back out of the booth, nearly knocking into his satchel as he did. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and his hair had been cut short; Stanley imagined this was the work of his parents over the month he'd spent with them.

"You'll have to tell us the story," said Kyle. "How'd your parents take it?"

"Oh," said Butters. At this, he seemed disappointed. "There'll be time for that later, I hope. Not well, as you might imagine."

"I'm sorry," said Kyle.

"It's all right," he said, "I'm here now, and—"

"And?" Eric asked, though something had caught Butters' attention.

"Brad!" Butters nearly hopped a foot into the air, then bolted at top speed toward the door. Sure enough, there Bradley had appeared, beaming beatifically. He held his arms open and Butters rushed toward them. A few old queens in the pub quipped, "She's sure happy to see _you_ , love," or "He must be a grower — give us a peek!" Butters ignored it, collapsing onto Bradley in wracking sobs.

"Brad," he cried. "Brad, it's you, you're here!"

"I'm here," he said. "And so are you."

"You're here!"

"I am!"

"It was horrible," Butters cried. "They're — he's a monster!"

"It's all right, shush," said Bradley. "I'm here, I've got you. Tell me later, dry your eyes. Don't let him spoil this."

"I love you so much," Butters cried.

"I love you too!"

"This is sickening," said Eric, leaning over the table so Stanley could hear this.

"Oh, shut it," said Kyle. "You wouldn't even understand."

"Like hell I wouldn't!"

"That's bold!" Kyle snapped.

Butters and Bradley approached the table, hands linked, Butters grinning like a child on the morning of his birthday, rubbing at the tracks of his tears. "Everything is going to be okay now," said Butters. He sounded quite breathless.

"Well," said Stanley. He was no fan of Bradley, but something about this was touching. "This does deserve a drink. A bottle of sherry, maybe?"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Kyle got up and climbed over Eric. "This calls for champagne. Come on, I'll help you." He yanked Stanley out of the booth, then pulled Butters' face toward his, kissing him wetly. "Mazel tov, Miss B."

"Thank you."

"We appreciate it," said Bradley.

"Stanley, champagne—"

"Coming, darling." He let Kyle pull him toward the bar.

* * *

Very early in the morning on July the twenty-eighth, Stanley found himself awake to the sound of knocking at Kyle's door.

"What the hell is that?" he asked.

"I don't know," Kyle mumbled. "Stop it."

"Kyle," said a voice from the other side of the door. "Kyle, I need to speak with you. Open up, bubbe."

"Make her go," Kyle moaned. He had somehow wedged his leg between both of Stanley's.

"Bubbe, I hope you're decent," his mother said. She knocked again. "I'm coming in."

The door opened and she came into the room, holding a pamphlet of some kind and making her way toward the windows, where she pulled back the curtains. "You really ought to wake up earlier than this, bubbelah," she said, not flinching at the way they were tangled up together. The truth was, they hadn't been fooling around, or anything like that; it had been another evening of late smoking and listening to records, discussing plans to decorate the flat and bitching, generally, about the sorry states of their lives. Yet it must have looked suspicious to Sheila Broflovski, for she cast a judgmental glance their way, even as she came to stand at the foot of the bed, that packet of papers held out in front of her.

The light hurt Stanley's eyes and he caught a glance at Kyle's alarm clock; it was not so early in the morning, he learned, but rather, just past 9 now.

"What's this?" Kyle asked, sitting up in bed. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing is the matter," she said. "But I have something for you."

"Is it exciting?" Kyle asked.

Now Stanley sat up too, genuinely curious.

"Exciting, no, not necessarily, but good news." She yawned as she handed the papers over to Kyle. "We've been working on this for quite some time, bubbelah. And just yesterday — there was some debate, but it finally received royal assent. And I thought." She paused. "You know, I hate to be presumptuous, but this has been on my mind for a long time. It's the British way to just ignore things, which is why I think you get all that about the love that dare not speak its name. But I want you to know, bubbelah, you're my son, and I'll always love you, and you can say anything to me, though I expect you might not want to, being a good, young British man, and all." She coughed into her fist and handed the papers to Kyle. "Anyway, here you go. I've been helping out on this all year, and it's legal now."

Kyle looked at it, leafing through the pages. He read aloud the title," Sexual Offenses Act, 1967. _Oh_. Um." He looked to Stanley, then looked at his mother. "Mom?"

She nodded. "Go ahead, boys." She put her hands on her hips. "You both should see this."

Stanley rubbed his eyes, still tired from a night of brief sleep, unfairly hastened toward its conclusion. But as he read the text before him, he began to waken:

 

_Sexual Offences Act 1967_

**ELIZABETH II**

**1967 CHAPTER 60**

_An Act to amend the law of England and Wales relating to homosexual acts. [27th July 1967]_

_BE IT ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—_

_**1.** _ _—(1) Notwithstanding any statutory or common law provision, but subject to the provisions of the next following section, a homosexual act in private shall not be an offence provided that the parties consent thereto and have attained the age of twenty-one years._

 

Stanley turned to Kyle, who was still holding the document in his hands. Only now did Stanley see that it bore the fine pencil markings of Sheila's notations, a question mark here or an underline there. Stanley and Kyle looked at each other, each a bit in shock.

"Mommy?" Kyle asked.

"Yes?"

"Did you vote for this?"

It took her a moment to answer. First she blinked, and then she said, "Yes! Of course."

"Because of me?" He set the papers aside and sat up straighter. "Did you vote on this because I'm a sexual offender?"

"Kyle, you aren't a sexual offender. Whoever did that to your face is a sexual offender." Again, she was quiet for a moment. Then: "It was the right thing to do. That's all." Shrugging, she said, "That's good, bubbe," and began to leave the room.

"I never—" Kyle began. Tears in his eyes, he could barely speak.

His mother turned around, in the doorway. She put her hands on her hips. She took one step back into the room. "I already lost one son," she said. Her voice was terrifying, there was such sincerity in it. "There's no way in hell I'd stand for a law that let anyone take away the other."

She left, and Kyle was shaking.

" _Darling_." Stanley reached for him.

They sat clasped together in silent catharsis, relief swelling between them, nothing erotic or strategic about it. The thought of the flat on the King's Road or the threat of the first visit to the clinic disappeared from Stanley's mind. For the first time since he had met Kyle, or perhaps the first time in his life, Stanley felt a small bit of peace.

For years Stanley had dreamed of a far-off place and another time, perhaps years from now and across the ocean, another universe in which they might have a chance at being happy. Never had it occurred to him, not once in all the years since he'd first dreamed of kissing another boy, that he might find the other boy, or that they might be happy here, in this very universe.

The thought was so unexpected that — here in Islington with Kyle's head on his shoulder, on Kyle's double-bed — it caused him, for the very last time, to cry.

 

THE END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this fic! I really appreciate you taking the time to give it your attention, and welcome any feedback. Again, thanks goes to Ceia and Nhaingen for their generous assistance, and to Julads for raising my standards on research in fan fic and inspiring me to take this story a step further and get it posted. Again, if you haven't had the pleasure of checking out her fic, please hop over to her account on this site and give her stuff a shot. She deserves many more readers and reviewers.
> 
> This story of Stan and Kyle in this fic continues in two more stories, "Go to the Mirror!" and The Rectum is a Tomb. The former is available on this account; the latter is on Fanfiction.net. (I'm "SekritOMG" on both.) RIAT is still in-progress, but I'm optimistic about being able to update it in the next six months. I intend to post a reference for the Polari used in this fic shortly, and will update with a link when I do.
> 
> Other than that - again, thanks for reading.


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